


Occupational Hazards

by sanerontheinside



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Reality, BIG WARNING FOR SURVEILLANCE STATE, Canon Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, James Bond AU, M/M, Mystery, Violence, and a random side character named Greg, can you believe I finally wrote that spy au, especially the modern updates, spy fic, this was inspired by Bond and Bourne and LeCarré
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:22:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24510754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanerontheinside/pseuds/sanerontheinside
Summary: The year is 5212. Three years ago the Separatist Crisis reached a fevered pitch; the galaxy narrowly avoided tipping into a full-scale war, ostensibly through the combined effort of diplomacy and Intelligence. (The concept of mutually assured destruction might have had something more to do with it.)The galaxy is in a state of Cold War, and someone is looking to tip the balance back again. And it starts with a CIS spy attempting to defect to the Republic...
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 34
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look I wrote a classic title crawl for a summary lol   
> Yeah anyway I always wanted to write some spyfic so here, I wrote this for me but you can take a look if you want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warning at the end**

The Order had a long and complicated history in Malastare. Neatly situated in the Mid Rim, it was perhaps one of the most highly-trafficked worlds in three sectors, and lay at the crossroads of the galaxy. Home to some of the most famous swoop and pod-race circuits, Malastare played host to both Core- and Rim-Worlders; to Republic and Confederate Senators alike; to successful businessmen, and ‘businessmen’ of a darker stripe, like the Black Sun Vigos. 

There were opportunities aplenty for commerce big and small—anyone could find a place in the bustling vaguely-legal corners of Malastarian metropoli. 

Escaped slaves, refugees, and freemen.  _ Rich men, poor men, beggar men, thieves. _

Jinn checked his wristcomm. 

Jinn’s history with Malastare was of special account. He’d run in the swoop races once or twice. Or, really, quite a few times more than that. Jinn had been posted here before, back when the galaxy was split neatly down the line of Rim and Core—when all anyone had worried about was keeping the Hutts to the Rim-side of that line. He knew the city of Pixelito like the back of his hand, now. 

Jinn’s earpiece activated with a soft click.  _ “Target is on foot.” _

Qui-Gon tapped the earpiece twice— _ Acknowledged _ —and started walking. 

This wasn’t one of his more typical assignments. He was here as backup—to make sure everything went without a hitch, or else remove the hitch. The ‘target’ was classed as high-payoff type: a defector from the Confederate side, one of the Onderon Five.  _ Potentially compromised, need exfil[1]. _

Veneth was supposed to meet the extraction team at a safehouse barely three blocks away from the hotel he’d holed up in. The support team had kept eyes on him since morning, and the techs had drones monitoring the surrounding city streets. They'd also been watching spaceports. Still no sign of trouble. 

Qui-Gon felt like he hadn’t drawn a full breath all day. Tailing Veneth was, at least, something to hold his focus. 

Veneth knew his way around Pixelito pretty well—not that Qui-Gon was surprised. Every agency had fought for a foothold here at one time or another; and Qui-Gon had met him here, years ago. He hadn’t recruited Veneth, but he’d pointed the man out to the Order’s “talent seekers” as a viable candidate. 

Twenty years later and Veneth was asking Jinn to watch his back. He’d do what he could. 

For the moment that meant following him through a dense and lively metropolitan crowd.  _ Lovely, _ Qui-Gon thought, a touch acerbically. Veneth had chosen this area for proximity to the Grand Market, hoping to use the crowd as cover. That could cut either way. Tall as he was, straight-backed, with snow-white hair, Veneth had at least done well to make himself unrecognisable to the drones, outfitted in a fluid, shape-obscuring outfit of some branch of Traveler Monks. Comms chatter held a persistent vein of complaint from the techs, so the disguise was effective. 

They had difficulty tracking him, too: Qui-Gon had stopped in one of the local shops just out of the spaceport, for loose-fitting layered clothes and a jacket that he changed into in the fitting rooms. Then he’d gone out the back way, and they hadn’t spotted him since. But at least the techs expected specialists to disappear. 

_ “Jinn?”  _

“I have eyes,” he murmured. He flowed with the crowd, using his height to his advantage to keep track of his target. Another moment and Veneth ducked into the entryway of one of the old apartment complexes, out of Qui-Gon’s sight and into the hands of the extraction team. 

Qui-Gon didn’t like the building: two unprotected sides, three floors of stairway, plenty of opportunities for trouble or a creative-enough sniper. The streets were so narrow that one wouldn’t even need a high-powered rifle to get the job done—just a good eye and the Force on their side. 

Qui-Gon lingered near a kiosk selling cheap tourist tokens, and waited, watching the street. 

The comm clicked on again.  _ “Target secure and ready to move,” _ Ki-Adi’s voice reported. 

_ “Easy part’s done with,” _ said someone else on the tech side, sounding relieved. 

_ Too soon, _ some part of Qui-Gon’s mind muttered darkly.  _ Who are these infants? _

The tension between his shoulder blades wasn’t gone; if anything, it was slowly getting worse. The weakest link of any operation was always transport, and they weren’t even at that point. 

“No trouble out here,” Qui-Gon said.  _ Yet. _

He started counting seconds. Veneth would need a costume change; then the team would need some time to move down three floors—two ahead sweeping for a threat as they went, then Veneth and the main guard, then two behind. 

Veneth’s costume change was taking too long. 

His comm clicked on again, and Ki-Adi’s soft voice reported:  _ “Slight addendum to the plan, gentlebeings: our friend here swiped some blueprints and proprietary information from the home office on his way out, apparently.” _

“Did he,” Qui-Gon echoed, darkly amused. “How naughty.” 

Privately he thought:  _ Holy hells, Veneth walked out of the Confederate Intelligence Agency with something big. _ There was a high chance that those files contained whatever it was that had convinced him to defect. 

Qui-Gon considered the chances of this mission going sideways, and rounded up to a dead certainty. He started counting seconds again. Uneasily, he drifted along the edges of the crowd down the street, but kept his step casual. They would just be filing out into the landing… 

The tension broke in a near-silent scuffle—a cut-off yell, like someone had splashed hot oil in the kitchen, and a couple of muted blaster shots. Qui-Gon’s mind supplied the acrid smell of chemical smoke and burnt flesh. 

A voice cut across the din of confused and startled shouting on the tech side— _ “Jinn!” _

“I’m going up.”

The moment his feet hit the third-floor landing, he knew something was wrong. Of course, he’d known it three floors down, when he walked through the door and smiled at the housekeeper; he’d known it halfway up the block, so he’d put an effort into being unremarkable. But when he reached the landing, the air around him twisted and went  _ sour— _

His blaster was already in hand. 

The attacker, whoever they were, hadn’t been interested in clean kills. The iron scent of blood was heavy and overpowering. Qui-Gon noted several ragged wounds, likely inflicted by a projectile weapon. Several were clearly fatal. 

Qui-Gon hissed out a curse. They’d known to go for Ki-Adi first, or at least they’d noticed that the mild-mannered Cerean was more of a threat than anyone else in the suite. Qui-Gon hadn’t known him very well, but there were few of their particular type of  _ specialist _ left. He kept track of each and every one. 

Maybe Ki-Adi had managed a biostasic trance.  _ Maybe. _

By the time he found Veneth in the next room, the man had already lost too much blood. Qui-Gon crouched down, tried to staunch the flow from a ghastly abdominal wound. “Clear. Six men down, two wounded, in critical condition. I need medevac.” 

There was a scratchy noise that indicated a long-distance sublight connection. 

_ “Jinn?” _ That was Mace.  _ “Where are you?” _

“Veneth and Ki-Adi are wounded,” he said tightly. “Authorise medevac, I’ll stay with them until it gets here.” 

Veneth was looking at him with a disturbing amount of understanding. As if he knew—

_ “Negative,” _ said Mace, with uncharacteristic hesitation,  _ “your new objective is to follow and apprehend the attacker. They have that CIA intel.” _

_ “Recover the data, you must. Backup, we have sent.” _

Of course; Yoda would have been informed the moment Ki-Adi mentioned that data. Veneth was a high-ranking defector in his own right, but in that moment the mission would have suddenly shot up in importance. 

Qui-Gon glanced down into that skin-crawlingly sympathetic gaze again. Veneth nodded, just barely. It woke a surge of heated anger in him, but he didn’t need that right now. “What’s the ETA for that medevac?” 

_ “Four minutes,” _ said someone on the support team. 

Qui-Gon’s lips thinned, but he picked up Veneth’s limp arm and rested his hand over the makeshift bandage. “Hold on to that.” 

Veneth’s grimace bore little resemblance to a smile, but Qui-Gon trusted the determined glint in the old soldier’s eye. It gave him enough reassurance that he rose to his feet, and walked back out the door. 

Jinn tapped his earpiece once to address his tech shadow, Nim, directly as he went. “When medevac gets here, make sure they check Mundi for a biostatic trance.”

_ “That’s _ real _?”  _

Qui-Gon thought his expression wasn’t quite a smile either. “Specialist secret. There’s this little grey area between the impossible and the improbable—that’s where I operate.”

_ “Yes, sir. Force be with you.” _

From this point forward, there was only the thrill of the chase. Colours and scents intensified, the whole world coming into sharp focus. He could feel the thrum of the street, and it found a resonance in his very bones. 

Jinn stepped out onto the bright sunlight already scanning the crowd for his ‘backup’. He didn’t have to wait very long: a heavy, shiny landspeeder rumbled up alongside him. Practically an armoured vehicle, expensive and obvious—but then, they weren’t hiding anymore. Not terribly maneuverable in the labyrinth of tiny Pixelito streets, unless you were fully prepared to tear out a path through the walls. 

Come to think of it, the driver probably was. He certainly wasn't wasting time on politeness. “Get in!” 

Jinn got in. “Got eyes on them?”

DuCrion grinned, something sharp and wild written bold across his face. “Up ahead, in that other shiny expensive hunk of metal.” 

“Don’t tell me, you liberated this one from some casino magnate.” 

“Nah, his daughter.” 

Qui-Gon rolled his eyes. 

Xanatos duCrion was a trainee, but Qui-Gon was fully prepared to recommend him for active field agent status. Xanatos was quick on the uptake and fiercely competent—a credit to the Order’s updated training program, certainly. But then, he would have had to be, to keep up with a Specialist. 

Qui-Gon leaned aside a little to avoid a fruit cart. The side of their landspeeder was not so lucky—the sensor array snagged and died with a sad whine. 

“That’s all right, you weren’t using it,” Qui-Gon said. 

Xan flicked a glance in his direction and jinked the steering control just a touch, grazing the wall on his side. 

“Wasn’t using that either. Who puts proximity sensors on a city vehicle in Pixelito, anyway?” 

Despite the queasy thrill in his whole body, Jinn smiled. 

Up ahead, their quarry was trying to put distance between them. But while the target’s landspeeder model was sleek and maneuverable (though compared to the armoured tank of duCrion’s choosing, anything was), it wasn’t getting anywhere farther or faster. This close to the Grand Market, Qui-Gon thought they were probably lucky to have picked fights with fruit carts and not pedestrians so far. 

Naturally their target chose that precise moment to swerve into a small, crowded plaza—and into a food cart. Qui-Gon swore as a few gallons of heated oil sloshed out onto the pavement. 

Xan snarled and pulled back on the steering. “I  _ hate _ crowd control.”

The oil caught fire with a low whoosh. Rippling in the heat haze, Qui-Gon caught sight of long red hair whipping after a tall pale figure, and reached over to swat Xan’s shoulder as he clambered out of the speeder. “You’re gonna hate the damage control even more, Xan: that’s Aurra Sing.”

He tracked her by the sound of a swoop bike speeding off, and commandeered one for himself from a startled bystander who was too shocked to protest. 

“All right, what am I looking for, anyone want to give me a hint?” 

Nim was the quickest to respond, as usual.  _ “Veneth was carrying a massive amount of data, so you’re looking for a—well, an encrypted portable datadrive. Sleek, black, and palm-sized, maybe like a tabacc case. Sending you an image of the model now.” _

Qui-Gon threw a quick glance at his wristcomm as he sped up a winding alley after Sing. “Copy that.” 

_ “Someone keep me posted on where the hell Jinn is, since he won’t see fit to tell me,” _ Xan added, sounding vaguely exasperated. 

_ “Ki-Adi tagged it with a tracking dot, so we’ll be able to follow her for some time,” _ Nim assured him evenly. 

Qui-Gon allowed one last faint smile, then focused singly on pursuit. Everything else fell away—the comms chatter, the panicked people, the likely death of an old friend. The map of Pixelito unrolled before him in his mind’s eye, and Sing was the only target that mattered now. 

The crowd parted magically for them, probably assuming Jinn and Sing were some amateur swoop racers—in other words, a pair of lunatics. Urban racers usually didn’t fly in crowded places or in broad daylight. It was dangerous, day or night, especially in the narrow alleys of the older city districts. But in Malastare, urban racing consistently ranked higher in popularity than free running. 

It was also very illegal, but Qui-Gon wasn’t especially worried about the local law enforcement just yet. He needed to get to Sing before they did—the rest was a problem for a later time. 

Sing was doing pretty well for someone unfamiliar with the terrain, though she wasn’t particularly concerned about (involuntary) spectator safety. More often than not, Qui-Gon was forced to shoot overhead and speed along walls for as long an arc as he could, desperately trying to avoid the shopfront awnings. If he flew too close, they tore in his wake, not built to hold up against the pressure differential. 

After one hairpin turn too many Sing apparently decided there was a better way to shake him off her tail, and shot up the wall to roof level. Qui-Gon doggedly followed, twisting the throttle and disengaging grav-stabilisers with a sharp kick. 

Sing’s intention had been to pull ahead, but she was a self-taught rider up against someone highly trained—and Qui-Gon had been winning races, track and street, long before he saw a lick of that training. He took the wall at a sloping arc much more difficult to sustain, and more than halved the distance between them. Sing, with a frustrated cry, snatched up a folding chair as she passed someone’s rooftop garden and slung it back at him with frightful accuracy. 

Qui-Gon narrowly avoided the impact, a quick jump bringing him up onto the higher neighbouring rooftop. The ledge was littered with broken glass—a deterrent for rooftop-runners, thieves, and probably cats. There wasn’t much roof left for this maneuver, but if he timed it right… With a grim smile, he twisted the throttle again, speeding ahead, and twitched the steering control just as he passed Sing, sending a spray of broken glass in her direction. 

And then he was airborne, dropping to a lower roof, hitting the brakes and wheeling around to see how Sing would manage. 

Disgustingly well, he decided. She adjusted for the new height without much difficulty, despite needing to shield her eyes nearly until the last second, and shot him a glare as she swerved left. Qui-Gon grinned, sharp and predatory: he’d caught sight of a sleek black case strapped to her belt. Sing must have been rather in a hurry, to be wearing it in the open like that. 

There were fewer people up here, but rooftops held their own challenges: changing elevation, clotheslines with or without washing, glass tables and chairs and modest vegetable gardens. As far as obstacle courses went, the Order’s training masters couldn’t have designed a more grueling one for their trainees. Sing would’ve made a good tank: she plowed through anything that got in her way, though she wisely avoided the clotheslines. 

The fact that they were heading straight for the Grand Market probably should have occurred to Qui-Gon sooner. The realisation came to him only seconds before Sing put on an extra burst of speed to cross the final stretch of roof, rocketed across the street three stories above the ground and straight through the stained-glass dome of the Grand Market itself. Qui-Gon swore and ducked close to his swoop. 

Xan caught his attention just as he fired thrusters to soften the landing in the middle of the Grand Market’s furniture showroom floor.  _ “Jinn! If you can get her out on the north side, I can cut her off at the speedway.” _

“No promises.” 

Theoretically, he could “herd” Sing into any direction he wanted by strategically sealing off certain fire-safety doors. Practically, Qui-Gon preferred not to take out a blaster in a crowded public area if it could be avoided, and shooting door controls didn’t always have the intended effect. “Nim!” 

_ “Yes, sir?” _

“Can you tap into security here?” 

_ “On it, sir. Likewise, no promises.” _

Nim, however, delivered pretty quickly.  _ “Right—I have cams, blast-doors, and the fire suppression systems. What do you need?” _

“Xan wants to meet Sing at the north entrance. Evacuate the lower floors, if possible.” 

_ “Done.” _

The sound of sirens rent the air. The sprinklers switched on— _ bloody outdated fire-suppression systems, _ Qui-Gon thought—and an automated announcement informed “valued customers” that there was a fire on the north side of the market. Sing abruptly turned and hurtled down the northeast stairwell. Qui-Gon swore as he narrowly missed hitting a stray pair of shoppers, and plunged after her. 

She didn’t even make it to the ground floor, darting out on the second storey. Sing didn’t turn into the crowd of evacuees, as Qui-Gon had half expected her to. She did, however, speed straight toward a bank of windows. He followed, but was forced to twist aside in midair as a hoversled loaded with produce hit the brakes and shuddered to a halt exactly in his way. Apparently their little stunt with the evacuation had frozen a whole queue of deliveries in the loading dock. 

Qui-Gon found himself forced into a labyrinth of small alleyways that housed the market’s open-air kiosks. He heard several blaster shots fired and a soft, but emphatic  _ “damn” _ over comms. 

“Missed her?”

Xan fairly growled in response.  _ “She’s headed towards the bridge. I’m on her tail, but she’s got the upper hand in this traffic.” _

Qui-Gon was nearly about to merge onto the speedway when it occurred to him that the bridge was in the opposite direction. “Oh, for—Xan! Are you flying against traffic?” 

_ “Yep!” _

Qui-Gon sat on the urge to roll his eyes, and muttered, “I hate when he does that. Nim?” 

_ “Already on it.” _

Locking down speedway traffic was a matter of tapping into the grid and freezing the stoplights. In this city, it was probably the easiest thing to hack. Of course, most of Pixelito tended to treat the traffic lights as mere “suggestions”; and there was a good chance of Xan and Sing’s chase causing a rather more effective lockdown in the form of a major pileup, anyway. Nim’s task was to keep the damage minimal, or at least as controlled as possible. 

Qui-Gon caught up to Xan and Sing when they’d managed to leave enough debris strewn across the speedway as to make it impassable. The two were frozen in a tense standoff, like circling predators. Sing, teeth bared, didn’t particularly have the look of someone cornered—although she never did. 

Of all Malastarian metropoli, Pixelito held a special distinction for the best air quality. This was achieved in part simply by regional air currents. Over the years, natural patterns had been helped along by windbreakers, breezeways, and vents installed all over the city. The same could not be said for the air quality above the waterways: here, the groundwater released a not-insubstantial amount of sulfur and methane into the atmosphere. The air currents directed unpleasant smells away from the city, but the waterways were still used to transport certain goods, loaded onto shielded, fire-proof barges. 

Sing never looked cornered because she never actually was, but her exit strategy was not necessarily  _ sane. _ For instance, leaping the bridge rail and flying over the waterway was perfectly reasonable, if you didn’t care about the potentially flammable concentration of gasses above the surface. Swoop-bikes were not fire-proofed; the canal had a series of shielded locks designed to protect the city—not so much any persons caught in the flames. 

Of course, Aurra decided that under the circumstances, it was a perfectly reasonable escape plan. 

Qui-Gon cursed, pulled out his rebreather—not an ideal solution, but a passable temporary one—and raised the loose neck of his tunic to wrap it over his nose and mouth. 

* * *

Xan had a moment of wild hope that his partner wouldn’t follow Aurra Sing off the bridge. Xan’s borrowed speeder was certainly not rated for waterways, and there wasn’t going to be much land for him to follow the chase. It wasn’t the first time Jinn had broken away without backup by far. Not that Jinn couldn’t take care of himself: the man had been trained to work alone. Xan wasn’t about to blame him for that—but he didn’t have to  _ like _ it, either. 

Xan spat, got back into the speeder and took off, barreling right through the bridge rail onto the raised bank of the canal. This was his fault in part, anyway—he should have taken the damn shot when he had it. Instead he’d frozen, like an idiot statue. Damn Aurra, and damn those mind-tricks that weren’t supposed to exist. Jinn had warned him about that, too. 

“Sing’s on the water, Jinn is in pursuit. I’m following on the west bank.”

_ “You’re leaving the bounds of the city,” _ Nim said in his ear.  _ “In a couple kliks, satellite images will no longer be accurate, I won’t be able to follow your route.” _

Xan acknowledged the warning automatically. 

That was the trouble with Rim-world assignments: all the advanced tech, drones, and holo-imagery in the galaxy didn’t change the fact that they were still relying on local infrastructure. Anywhere outside the major cities and the Order’s operatives were more or less on their own. 

Xan had Jinn’s back, always. They just wouldn’t have Nim’s help anymore, but that was fine—not their first Grand Malastarian, it would be fine. Xan didn’t like the cold feeling creeping down his spine. 

The seat beside him had a new occupant, a lightweight, long-range carbine. The Order generally didn’t go for projectile weapons these days, but Jinn had insisted—specifically because of flammable gases and canals, Xan realised now. Like Jinn had known they might end up chasing someone outside the city. 

Xan wondered, not for the first time, if precognition was another one of those not-so-fabled skills the Specialists had. 

He rather hoped not. 

If he could just get ahead, cut away along land and anticipate Jinn and Sing at the point where the canal ran wide and fast into a waterfall—then he might be able to do something. He might slow Sing down, damage her swoop-bike—damage  _ her, _ Force’s sake. Xan slammed the accelerator and sped inland. He would have seconds on them, at best, but he would have the higher ground. 

_ “Du Crion,” _ his earpiece crackled.  _ “Aurra Sing, you must stop. The datadrive, we can find later; drag the canal, if we must. But Sing—we cannot again allow her to escape.” _

_ Thank you, _ revered Master, Xanatos thought snidely,  _ I sorely needed the reminder. _

“Will do our best,” he said instead, scanning the terrain ahead for an easier flight. The joys of tangling a landspeeder in a crop of trees were many and varied, and best experienced by someone else. 

It wouldn’t take much longer now, to get to the peak, just another few seconds. Xan had the elevation now, enough to catch glimpses of the canal. He was pleased, at least, that the swoops were about where he’d expected them to be—two small points zipping between two slow lines of barges. Behind them, someone terribly sagacious had started activating the waterlocks. Maybe that was Nim. 

Xan narrowly avoided a splintering, half-destroyed fence, pulling up alongside a derelict old night-beacon. Scanners had improved significantly in the last few decades, rendering most physical landmarks superfluous, ignored, and crumbling. For Xan that currently meant remote, all but inaccessible, and an excellent sniper’s nest. He tumbled out of the speeder, carbine in hand, and took up position overlooking the canal, eye trained on the bend. 

He didn’t have long to wait. The high-pitched sound of swoop engines reached him first, like a pair of angry, disharmonious insects. It sounded—off. The feeling of wrongness surged up Xan’s spine again like cold seawater. 

The swoops hurtled into view around the curve of the canal with an unholy screech of rending metal. Then it was obvious. 

“I don’t have a clean shot,” Xan said urgently. “Their swoops are locked together.” 

_ “DuCrion, we need you to take out Sing.” _

That was Windu. There was a dark undercurrent to his voice, though, tight with worry. 

“I read you,” Xan replied, terse, “but if I hit one of them I might take out both.” 

Jinn had been on the outside of that curve, and hadn’t managed to break loose. Sing wasn’t letting him, Xan realised. 

Jinn had told him once that in Malastarian swoop-racing, there were few illegal moves. Deliberately locking your swoop to an opponent’s practically made up that list. The maneuver subjected both swoops to damaging stresses. It didn’t help anyone win, and was as much self-sabotaging as it was damaging to the opponent. 

_ “DuCrion.” _ Again, Yoda’s voice crackled across the line. 

The feeling of being submerged in cold water intensified. Time stretched out like elastistring, like slow-pulled taffy. 

_ “Take the shot.” _

Almost before he fully understood what was happening, Xan pulled the carbine snug against his shoulder, put his eye to the scope, aimed… 

He must have pulled the trigger, but he never felt it. There was a low rush as all sound seemed to be sucked out of the world, pulled in and centred at the ball of fire that roared down the waterfall. 

Xan swallowed, mouth full of bitter metal taste. His hands were shaking. 

“Jinn is down.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how ppl must've seen Skyfall for the first time, realised 007 dies in the first 10 minutes of the film and probably thought, "that can't just be _it,_ right?" 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> hey y'all! spoilers/warnings available, pls turn on creator's style to view  
>   
>   
>  [style on](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24510754/chapters/59170030?style=creator#return1)  
>    
> **Footnotes** :
> 
> 1exfiltration: opposite of infiltration, also extraction[return to text]


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after Malastare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In honour of some birthdays, and because it’s almost been a week.

_“And now the news: this morning Chief Executive of Empire Holdings and philanthropist Valdis Palpatine announced the opening of a new refugee camp on Saleucami. The camp is the most recent addition to the_ Sanctuary _project, now one of over eighty camps open to migrants fleeing unrest on their homeworlds._

 _“Palpatine spoke at the Unified Galactic Aid conference on Eriadu earlier today. In his remarks, he once again accused the Confederacy of funding insurgencies and providing partisan factions with weapons. President of the Confederacy Count Yannis, Head of House Dooku of Serenno, did not respond to the businessman’s fiery charge.”_

Mace froze the news-stream and scoffed into his caff. “Philanthropist.” 

“Mace,” said Plo, a touch reproachfully. 

“Yes, I know,” Mace sighed. “What was he speaking about at that conference, anyway?” 

Plo shrugged, and tapped his datapad. “He’s campaigning for looser restrictions on cloned tissue for medical use. Nothing overtly dire.” 

“Not _overtly,_ no. Can we find out what else he was up to on Eriadu?” 

Mace had the feeling he was being subjected to a particularly unimpressed look from behind the antiox mask, though the Kel Dor was hard to read. Then again, if the measured fraction of a second before Plo answered didn’t speak volumes, it might as well have written the whole _Do Te_ Cycle of the Baran Do Sages. 

“Eriadu feels that the Republic greatly oversteps the bounds of decency by making requests of this nature, and is deeply opposed to such a violation of its citizens’ right to privacy.” 

“Palpatine is not an Eriadan citizen.” 

“Mace.” 

“He’s a very good friend of House Tarkin, I understand—” 

“Diplomatic incident.” 

“I know.” 

It was disappointing; the Order had been trying to launch an official investigation into the tech magnate for years, with limited success. When various systems seceded from the Republic nearly a decade ago to form the Confederacy, a vast number of manufacturers had followed, citing more favourable financial markets—and looser regulations, naturally. 

They weren’t precisely on war footing. The Republic and the Confederacy maintained rather chilly relations, just shy of open hostility. No one wanted to buy tech from the enemy, risking sabotage or Confederate spyware (Republic spyware, on the other hand, was a matter of course). Empire Holdings was one of very few remaining companies that claimed to have “pure” Republic loyalties. Thus, their chief executive remained frustratingly off-limits. 

“I take it, this morning’s meeting didn’t go well,” Plo probed carefully. 

Mace scowled. “How do you feel about a joint intelligence force composed of the Order and Judicial working together?” 

“All of Judicial?” Plo asked, surprised. 

“Coruscant Security Forces,” Mace clarified. “Local security and counter-espionage.”

Judicial as a whole could be likened to an ataxic dianoga, in all its confused and sprawling glory. Every appendage was either entirely unaware of what the others were doing, or violently opposed. The Senate Bureau of Intelligence was generally acknowledged to be corrupt. The Senate Guard, while officially under the control of the Coruscant Security Forces, answered more and more to SBI. 

CSF, on the other hand, had originally overseen all elements of Coruscanti surveillance, from financial violations to organized crime to counterterrorism. In the last few decades, Judicial’s Republic Security division (responsible for everything outside of Coruscant space) had taken to using CSF’s resources—including the processing power and algorithms that CSF teams had developed. At the start of the Separatist Crisis, this partnership was quickly made official, in the form of the Counter-Espionage branch. 

Plo turned the thought over before answering. “There are… complications. This is not an ideal time to be making such broad changes.” 

“Subpar, you might say.” 

“I might,” Plo tilted his head forward. “I cannot begin to enumerate the full scope of the changes this will bring, but they will be detrimental to both agencies.” 

“And what are your thoughts on the fact that this new intelligence agency will have private financial backing?”

“I have a sudden burning interest in my retirement fund and hazard pay,” Plo deadpanned, studying his datapad again. 

“I thought you might.” 

“Well, perhaps that might be rash,” Plo allowed, only the slightest twitch of something that might be called amusement on his face. “If nothing else, we should at least know who these private backers are, and have a way of knowing how they are going to be using our information.” 

Mace sighed. “People used to worry about various intelligence services having access to their lives. Now, here we are, the whole intelligence community worried about corporations having access to _our_ data.”

“Ironic,” said Plo. 

“Worst of all, somehow these corporate giants no longer need to give _us_ access to anything of theirs. Who decided that was a good idea? Don’t answer that.” 

Plo nodded agreeably and went back to his notes. “What do you plan to do?” 

“I don’t know yet,” Mace said honestly. “Yoda isn’t fighting this, and our liaison with the Chancellor’s cabinet has been pressuring the troll to retire anyway. The Joint Intelligence Initiative does come with a multi-sector surveillance program—under the guise of Republic security, obviously. That means they need several major systems to agree, but they don’t have all the votes in the Senate.” 

“Is that what the upcoming summit on Corulag is for?” 

“That’s the one.” 

Plo nodded, barely glancing up from his work. “I’ll put together a list of everyone attending. I assume you’ll be going?” 

Mace hesitated. “It’s possible. Even likely. I’m not quite sure what to make of Doriana, yet.” 

“Well, what was your first impression of him?” 

Mace snorted. “Cocky little upstart. Smart, obviously, but he doesn’t put much effort into being likeable.”

“We can’t all be diplomats,” agreed Plo, shooting Mace a sly look. 

“Indeed, some of us have to work at it,” Mace agreed. “Look, it’s hardly my fault—diplomacy wasn’t in the job description for Administrative Aide to the Head of the Order, you know.” 

Plo chuckled, and waved him off as he turned to check the pulsing notification light of his datapad. 

But, Mace thought with a slight twitch of dread, it wasn’t much of a joke anymore. In the last year, Mace had been speaking more in every meeting he attended with Master Yoda; and on the rare occasions that the Head of the Order was expected to give a public address, that task fell to Mace yet again. No one dared to say it, but from the looks of things, Yoda was preparing Mace to step in as his successor. 

As much as Mace tried not to think about it, there was the inevitable fact that the Joint Intelligence Force would be—was meant to be—one indignity too many: the thing that would finally convince Master Yoda to give up his office. Doriana’s behaviour toward them both was more than enough of a hint. Doriana painted a picture in which Mace Windu would take his rightful place as the new Head of the Order. 

In Mace’s mind, the more realistic picture was an ugly one, in which he was stuck mediating between the new overlords and an Order full of people who saw him as a traitor. 

Mace glanced at his chrono. 

“Plo, could you cover my comms for a bit? I have an appointment.”

Plo didn’t even look up. “Of course. Buy me lunch.” 

Mace smiled. “Aren’t you lucky I’m passing by Dex’s.” 

“I said _lunch,_ not fast food.” 

“Nine-alarm soup,” Mace countered. 

The Kel Dor sighed heavily, shuffled his datapad and notes together and got up from his desk. “Why did I go into espionage? All day you work with people who put all their effort into learning your greatest weaknesses. The smoke-flavoured one, please.” 

“Done.”

* * *

One of the older training masters of the Order used to say, “the road to our downfall is built on good intentions.” Mace believed it more and more with every passing day. 

On the most technical level, the Order should never have gotten involved in politics. But Mace was a few hundred years too late with that bit of wisdom, so all there was left for him to do was make the best of it. He couldn’t credit himself with success on that front, unfortunately: whenever the Order needed to interact with the politicians, Mace somehow ended up doing most of the talking, while Yoda sat by, giving monosyllabic replies at best. 

Earlier that morning, Mace and Yoda had been especially displeased to attend a joint meeting with members of Judicial—Coruscant Security Forces, to be precise. To be even more precise: the Order’s representatives sat down across from Judicial’s representatives, and all were deeply disappointed by the content of the meeting, as delivered by a young upstart at the head of the table. 

Kinman Doriana was clearly enjoying his new-found power. A month ago, Mace hadn’t even known of his existence. Now, he was soon to be Director of an all-new, restructured, streamlined, _cutting-edge_ intelligence agency, made up from the combined forces of the Order and Judicial’s Coruscant Security branch. A meteoric rise, if ever Mace had seen one; certainly not the sort that bought one many friends in their own organisation. Usually it meant allies among the more politically aligned departments, and politicians themselves. Political allies, in Mace’s experience, didn’t make very good friends. 

Certainly not friends who were willing to meet with you in a park, pass along a little information. Not at all like Judicial’s Director of Counter-Espionage, currently coming down the tree-lined alley with clipped steps. Not that anyone would know it, just by looking at her: a lady in a neat tailored suit, with curling silver-shot hair and an intent expression. Just a businesswoman out in the park for a lunch meeting. 

“Anything I should know?” Mace asked. “Like who authored this brilliant new plan, perhaps?”

Alik am-Norayr settled down on the bench beside him with a restrained sigh. “Funny, I thought if anyone had their finger on the pulse of our politicians, it would be your lot. On the jugular, if you will.” 

“Funny, that’s where I thought you kept your teeth.” 

“Well, disappointment is a part of life, and all that.” Alik leaned back and melted against the bench. “We’re slipping, Mace, I’ve been telling you for years. Anyone who was ever responsible for some kind of strategy or active missions has been shoved into the background and buried in paperwork. They’re calling us _relics,_ ” she added, with a moue of distaste. “Well, sure. Not like they ever paid for the upgrades.” 

“So this is an upgrade? Throwing together two completely different organisations?” 

“Recycling. They’re rearranging us using corporate funds.” Alik sat up a little and waved vaguely past his shoulder. “They’re building a new monstrosity over there in the Industrial Sector, I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Isn’t that where you keep your datacenter?” 

“No comment. State of the art building, eyes and ears everywhere, bought and paid for by a coalition of corporate sponsors—including Empire Holdings, by the way.” 

“Oh? Lovely.” 

“I expect most of us will lose our jobs in the transfer,” Alik said, rather matter-of-factly. “The Order has special skills they’ll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere, but my lot—not so much.” 

“Yours have skills, too,” Mace objected, “the sort that took years to train.”

“But they’re not nearly as… esoteric, shall we say?” She shrugged. “It’s the way of the world, Mace. There’s a saying on my homeworld: a new broom sweeps a new way.” 

“Eloquent.” Mace swept their surroundings with a professional glance, but saw no observers, nothing out of the ordinary. “Speaking of good ideas: wouldn’t it occur to our overlords that now, in the midst of such extreme tensions—perhaps the worst they’ve been in the last decade and a half—now is maybe not the best time to be throwing a lot of little grey men into the streets?” 

“When you find one of our overlords who is possessed of a modicum of sense, it’ll truly be the crowning glory of our trade. I’ll give you the medal myself.”

“I suppose that’ll be the day to retire, before they disappoint me.”

“A truly winning strategy, ten out of ten.” 

Mace glanced over at her. “What about Doriana? He was one of yours, wasn’t he?” 

Alik pulled a face. “Gods, I hope not.”

“I meant the company in general, not your department in particular.” 

The Director relaxed slightly. “Hm. He was briefly near and about my department. But he was a trainee—a page boy, nothing glamorous.” 

_A Senate page,_ Mace translated. Doriana would have been assigned to shadow a Senator and report back to his handler at CSF. Alik was right—there was definitely nothing glamorous about the assignment. Good for giving newcomers a taste of the _real_ spy adventure: the day-to-day boredom of embassy postings. “Which sector?”

“Chommell. Native of Naboo and all that, illegitimate son of some dead bigwig.” She shook her head. “Bright boy, I have to say. He knew how to talk his way into what he wanted. Found himself a more suitable placement within days.” 

“What, the Bureau? Ambitious,” Mace muttered. 

“Better that he be someone else’s headache than mine, honestly. And if he’s successful enough to spread that headache to a gaggle of underlings? The Bureau deserves only the best.”

That surprised a quiet snort out of him. “Only one problem there,” Mace pointed out, “ _we_ are now his underlings.” 

“You know me, I’m three headaches with a leg brace—with a tendency to approach assignments creatively, and all that. I serve the _people,_ Mace, not some head in the clouds,” she added, noticing his concerned look. “Somebody’s got to.” 

And that was what worried him: up until now, Alik am-Norayr had been the queen of her domain. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to impose order and take control over her department, but this time they had the kind of clout and money behind them that typical inter-Judicial spats did not. 

Alik was ruthless, and she could be brutal, but of all the allies Mace had ever made, she was easily the most valuable. Largely because of her creative tendencies, of course. 

“Let me know if there’s anything you need.” 

Alik grinned. “Likewise.”

“How creatively did you approach the instruction that we are not to look into our corporate overlords, by the way?”

“Blindfolded, with my hands behind my back.” Alik’s grin grew wider. “In the most technical sense, I’m not even using Republic resources for this. Empire Holdings presents the greatest challenge, unsurprisingly, but I have reams of information on the others. I’ll pull them together into something readable for you, if you like. Same drop point?” 

“Yes, thank you.” 

Alik waved dismissively. “Don’t mention it. I know you don’t really have the numbers for that sort of thing. You don’t have the numbers, I don’t have the specialists. In all respects, this might’ve been a very happy marriage, actually,” she reflected. “What a pity the Senate got there first.” 

“Well, maybe we can stage a coup,” Mace joked half-heartedly. 

“I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you,” Alik replied, getting to her feet. Her voice sounded a little strained through the humour. “At that point, it’s best to just run off to Scarif and let it all rot out here.” 

Mace suddenly felt bowled over by a feeling of black despair. “Scarif’s not far enough.” 

Alik glanced back at him, and shook her head, sympathetic. “There’s no place far enough, my dear,” she said, and offered him a hand up.

* * *

Restructuring governments was thankless work, but building them up from nothing was worse. Yannis still didn’t understand how he’d ended up here, the head of a new coalition that sprawled across the galaxy and challenged the might of the Republic as an equal. 

That only meant that his good sense was about ten years behind the times—at a minimum. Probably some twenty-five years: right about then, Yannis had first tried his hand at mediating a dispute between Serenno and Celanon. He’d only wanted what was best for Serenno; he’d reclaimed his place at the head of House Dooku, and wanted to prove to his principality that he could be trusted. 

Now it occurred to him that perhaps he shouldn’t have volunteered for the role. He’d wanted a quiet retirement. Instead, his success in negotiating a deal with Celanon had suddenly propelled him into the status of a public figure across multiple systems—not just his own. No good deed, and so on. 

“We won’t survive these sanctions,” he said at last. “We may have a full host of Ag-worlds on our side, but the expense of figuring out new delivery routes alone—and ships and fuel that we don’t have—we _can’t._ ” 

Mina had long since come to the same conclusion, by the way her lips thinned. “No point in being fatalistic about it, Yan. The solution is… unpalatable, but it’s the only one we’ve got.” 

“Unpalatable,” he echoed tiredly. “I have the utmost respect for your silver tongue, my friend, but in case you missed it, we just hosted the Meerian Ambassador, who had some choice words to say with regard to the condition his world was left in. ‘Unpalatable’ falls a little short, by comparison.” 

“Bandomeer is not the only planet that was strip-mined for corporate greed,” Mina retorted, voice brittle-edged with frost. 

“Mm, no. Bandomeer, Onderon, and—” Yannis consulted a datapad “—nearly a third of the planets that have petitioned for Confederate membership can claim that as well. This is exactly why we’ve been trying to legislate corporate activity and avoid dealing with major conglomerates more than absolutely necessary.” 

“Dooku, this _is_ necessary. The Banking Clan is willing to open a line of credit, but we still need ships.”

“Mina.” Yannis paused, counted to ten, then started softer. “I don't mean to be bullheaded, but I don’t _like_ this. There is only one company offering us ships at a price we can afford. If it were some subsidiary of our corporate alliances—like Baktoid or Sienar—I would not be pleased, but I would consider it.”

Mina threw up her hands, frustrated. “So what is it about this _Imperia Shipyards_ entity in particular that’s putting you off?” 

_A bad feeling,_ Yannis thought. He was still trying to figure out what had sparked it. The eminently sensible Senator Bonteri would accept nothing less. 

She seemed to know what he was thinking anyway. “The Agency says the company is clean.” 

“Too clean,” Yannis muttered. “Two years ago someone at the Agency claimed that they’d discovered inconsistencies in records from Empire Holdings. Next thing I know, one of our best operatives is dead on Malastare, supposedly caught attempting to defect. He had a list of Empire’s business ties—subsidiaries, shell or shelf corporations connected to various executives or their families.” 

A spark of understanding came into Mina’s eyes. “ _Imperia_ was on the list?” 

“I am certain of it, but I have no evidence. All of that operative’s work has been called into question and locked away. So here we are—about to get into bed with a company that claims to be loyal to the Republic. One whose Chief Executive accuses our government of funding terrorism, no less. And yet, whoever is offering us this deal _clearly_ knows we don’t have access to that kind of money.” 

The _Confederacy_ didn’t have that kind of money, certainly. But Yannis was neither blind nor a fool; he understood that when some of their member worlds seceded from the Republic, they saw their Confederate membership as newfound freedom to raid, pillage, plunder, and conquer. They could have invaded and conquered worlds even as Republic members—the Republic would have been hard-pressed to enforce its Sentient Rights laws. But now, they’d entered into a fledgling new government that had even less power over them. 

There were at least twenty such reports on Yannis’s desk regarding Togoria from this week alone, and he hadn’t managed to devote more than three minutes to them in three days. 

The Senator’s expression flickered, the briefest hint of regret. “If we refused to do business with every crooked entity…” 

_Like every single government looking to expand its borders?_ Dooku thought. “I hope you will find those words comforting in time.” 

There was ice in his voice, and Mina balked at the unusually harsh response. But she’d never let that stop her before. 

“Right now, we don’t _have_ time. At least securing a contract with them will give us that.” 

Unfortunately, as usual, she was also right—or at the very least, unfailingly pragmatic. Dooku bit back a curse, and capitulated. “I want the Agency looking into this. I want to know everything about _Imperia_ and her parent company.” 

Mina tipped her head. “All right. And we’ll insist on having a way to get out of the contract as painlessly as possible.” 

“Can you see if anyone can negotiate smaller contracts with Baktoid or Sienar?” 

“I’ll ask around.” 

“And get together some of the more tactically-minded generals on our Defense Council, along with the Agency’s Domestic branch. The fact that Palpatine can accuse us of funding terrorism is something that must be dealt with.”

“It’s on the agenda.” Mina shifted awkwardly and added, “I think you should meet Palpatine. Or at least see him speak.” 

Dooku didn’t quite sigh. “Why? What am I to learn from it?” 

“He speaks at his Sanctuaries. At the very least you would be able to see where he houses the refugees, and what conditions they live in,” Mina said. “I understand, of course, that he has an incredible public relations department, and that there’s no sense judging the chief executive of a major company by appearances. But, well—I mean it just seems like too much effort to go through, just for appearances’ sake.” 

_Depends on what it is he’s trying to gain,_ Yannis thought. But he relented, somewhat. “I’ll have something scheduled.” 

_And have someone look into the Sanctuaries,_ he added, viciously uncharitable though it was. He listened with half an ear as Mina moved on through their agenda, his mind prodding insistently at old, scabbed-over worries. 

The Agency’s silence over Empire Holdings and its chief executive filled Dooku with a clawing sense of unease. Veneth’s death—even more so. Veneth had never once contacted him through official channels, and Yannis, foolishly, hadn’t assigned too much significance to that fact. Force, but he hadn’t left that life so long ago as to miss such bald and obvious clues. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that the Agency might have been bought with all its loyalties, by a rich and powerful man like Valdis Palpatine. Unpleasant, to be sure, and not something Yannis wanted to consider, but not difficult to imagine at all. 

Yannis needed someone he could trust. Someone on the outside. Someone who didn’t care a whit which way the politics went. 

What a pity; the only person who fit that profile was also two years dead. 

* * *

The blue light of the hologram flickered and tossed shadows around the dimly-lit office, competing with the limited yellow circle that the desk lamp beside it offered. Valdis Palpatine sat comfortably in his winged chair, deep enough in the shadows to confuse the holofeed pickup. The encryption was one of the higher-quality ones, the kind that didn’t distort the image or the voice too badly, but masked both reasonably well. Still, he didn’t like leaving himself open to even the slightest chance of identification. 

“We have now secured most of our targets along the Perlemian Trade Route, Hydian Way, and several major hubs on the Corellian Run as well,” the young man reported dutifully. 

“Very good.” Palpatine nodded, approving. “Whose votes do we still need for this coalition to hold?” 

“We are missing Anaxes, Columex, Alderaan—well, naturally—and a few of the smaller systems,” the hologram informed him. “Anaxes, Gossam, and Columex have so far presented the greatest challenges. Denon has been particularly resistant.” 

Valdis hummed thoughtfully and rested his chin on his clasped hands. “Columex, you need not trouble yourself with—we have means of talking them into the deal. Gossam is also easy enough, we can offer them certain… concessions. Anaxes presents a bit more of a challenge, however, there you are entirely correct.” 

Palpatine bent a piercing, speculative look at the shimmering hologram. “What are your thoughts on the matter?” 

The pickup was also exceptionally useful in that it allowed users to read each other’s body language. The young fellow leaned back in his seat, as though he hadn’t given it a single thought earlier. An act, of course: he was quick, but given to dramatic flair; he prepared ahead of time, and well, but loved to present his ideas as off-the-cuff flashes of brilliance. Palpatine tolerated it. The boy really was useful. 

“Anaxes is one of the most heavily surveilled worlds in the Core, and they’ve worked tirelessly to maintain a balance with their citizens’ right to privacy. The fact that Eriadu has already agreed to the terms works greatly in our favour. I understand that much of the Core looks to Alderaan, our foremost agitator for sentient rights, but their participation in this coalition isn’t all that useful. They never had the infrastructure to support this sort of thing—thus they’re not a critical member. An unfortunate loss, certainly, but one we can weather well enough. If Anaxes can be convinced, the others will fall into line, more or less. We’ll secure Denon this way, certainly.”

Palpatine smiled. “Excellent, my dear boy. You will accompany the representatives to the summit on Corulag, naturally, and give them a dazzling performance of our technical ability. I will take care of Anaxes. Oh, and—you may see a mutual friend of ours there. He is there to assist you, so do try to provide him with whatever he requires.” 

The young man bowed. “Of course, sir.” 

“Good luck, now,” Palpatine said, his smile wide and perfectly calibrated to be reassuring. He switched off the holostream and tapped his desk-comm. “Tell Pestage I wish to see him, please.” 

Moments later, Pestage opened the door with a polite knock. “Sir?” 

“Ah, Sate, do come in. I have a challenge for you.” Valdis glanced up at the pale man. “Think you can do a job on the most heavily surveilled planet on the Perlemian, and get away without appearing on their cams?” 

Pestage inclined his head with a faint smirk. “What is the assignment?” 

“You are to accompany our man to the summit on Corulag and observe the vote. It will likely not go our way.” 

Pestage sat down. “I am not to tamper with the vote, I take it?” 

Palpatine shook his head. “Too risky. You come in afterwards, convincing the stragglers to rethink their choice. Choose a target—at your discretion. The Republic must be forced to acknowledge its vulnerability—we need the Joint Intelligence Coalition to succeed.” 

“Noted.” Pestage accepted the datapad from Palpatine and scanned it, before handing it back. “Anaxes, then.” 

“A critical voice when it comes to regulatory measures in surveillance, but you may find other factors important in choosing your target.”

“All right. Any additional instructions?”

Palpatine hummed and rapped his desk thoughtfully. “Perhaps you might find a target that will encourage the Confederacy to take action, at long last. I’m getting the sense that after a decade of this Separatist problem, the galaxy as a whole has become a bit,” he inclined his head, almost archly, “complacent.” 

Pestage leaned forward in a mockery of a respectful bow. “Very good, sir.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The less he knew, the better. He was just a trainee. His projects would be limited to some modelling, some trend analysis, and some research; typical run-of-the-mill stuff. 
> 
> And, of course, studying the structure of the Order’s system, finding ways to perfect the algorithms that ran Intelligence these days. The trainees who successfully completed their practicum either progressed deeper into the Analyst class, or went on to the next level: introduction to the Neural Interface System. 
> 
> _That_ was what he was after. 

The atrium of the Order’s headquarters was a large, airy space, sun-filled and laid out in sand-coloured stone, transparisteel and brushed-metal fixtures. Statues stood guard in the corners—great hooded figures supporting the domed ceiling, hinting at the Order’s ancient monastic origins. Its foundation, both physical and metaphorical, predated the Republic. The simple lines of the building’s exterior hinted at austerity, but there was warmth here. 

Warmth, and a surprising quiet: beyond the guarded entry, the floors were carpeted with what appeared to be soft, noise-canceling material. People drifted by dressed in typical business suits, like employees at some ordinary Coruscant bank or insurance company. Gone was any sign of the Ancient and Noble Order of the _Je’daii—_ of the soft-spun robes, the venerated ranks of Knight and Master. 

A rather bored guard scanned Obi-Wan’s pass with barely a glance at his identification, or up at Obi-Wan’s face. He could’ve switched out the data strips, Obi-Wan mused, changed permissions, and no one would’ve noticed. The guard at the entrance didn’t seem to be the most important one, then. 

“Obi-Wan Kenobi?” a voice called out. 

Obi-Wan turned in the direction of the voice and discovered a small-ish woman, datapad in hand and stylus in her curling brown hair. She slipped the stylus out of her bun and held it poised in her right hand, like a dart. 

“Trainee Kenobi,” she repeated. 

“Yes?” 

The woman nodded, satisfied, and tapped something on her screen. “Good. I am Tura Tallik, but you just call me Tura. If you have any questions about your program and placement, you are to come to me. Technical questions go to your training Master or to your department supervisor. If you’ll follow me?” 

Obi-Wan quickly discovered why the guard wasn’t all that attentive. The whole of the Order’s security system made the building itself a living, breathing beast. It wasn’t quite the most restrictive system he’d ever seen; there weren’t cameras monitoring every corridor, and most authentication points didn’t require anything beyond the ident card—no prints or retinal scans necessary. But there were motion sensors that dimmed lights in low-traffic corridors, and there were card-readers on doors between departments. With a computer and a way into the system, it could be possible to track anyone in this building. 

Not that Obi-Wan actually intended to do any such thing. Sure, he could probably slice his way in from inside the bloody building without getting caught. Failing that, there was always a good chance that the Order would be determined to keep a slicer good enough to crack their system as their cybersecurity specialist. 

But Obi-Wan was already a trainee, and there was no point in jeopardizing his standing. Better to have the Idiot sabacc card _up_ one’s sleeve than on it. Obi-Wan had set his sights a little higher than ‘cybersecurity specialist’, after all. 

Tura gave Obi-Wan an abbreviated tour of the building—the Temple, as members of the Order affectionately termed it. (It was better than the training facilities, which were less warmly referred to as The Nursery or The Créche. There was something venerated about this place.) 

The upper levels, Tura informed him, were for administrative purposes. The lower levels, however, were his domain. This was where the techs were sequestered—for everyone else’s safety, Obi-Wan supposed. The engineers were even further down, and below them were the Archives. 

Obi-Wan was officially an entry-level member of the Analyst pool. They’d been herded into a bullpen, facing a massive—though currently inactive—screen, and overseen by a bank of offices, all sleek metal and frosted-transparisteel. 

“Your supervisor is Xanatos duCrion,” Tura nodded up ahead at a slender-fingered, raven-haired man. He had his narrow back to the room at large. Curiously, Obi-Wan didn’t think it would be possible to sneak up on him at all. 

Then duCrion turned, his eyes scanning the bullpen and sliding right over Obi-Wan. There was a spark of acknowledgement for Tura, then the intense look flicked back to him. Obi-Wan’s breath hitched, just a little. The man was all sleek feline poise and razor-sharp edges and blue-blue eyes, nearly indigo. If it turned out he could read minds through that piercing gaze, Obi-Wan wouldn’t find it too surprising. 

Of course, those were just legends—about the Order, about stretching sentients’ abilities to the fullest, and then a bit beyond that point. There was mind-reading, and then there was observation or cold-reading, elevated to a terrible art form. But Obi-Wan knew enough about the Order, and about Intelligence organisations in general: if it was possible to hone such a skill, they would find a way to do it. 

“Your new workspace,” Tura said, breaking up his burgeoning unease before it could take root. 

She was really rather chipper. Sweet thing, Obi-Wan thought, smiling with a lovely set of teeth like that. He got the feeling he was standing beside a ball of sunshine wrapped around a steely core of murderous rage. Force, was everyone in the Order like that? 

He didn’t really want to know. Obi-Wan was here for a relatively low-tier assignment, so the less he knew, the better. He was just a trainee. His projects would be limited to some modelling, some trend analysis, and some research; typical run-of-the-mill stuff. 

And, of course, studying the structure of the Order’s system, finding ways to perfect the algorithms that ran Intelligence these days. The trainees who successfully completed their practicum either progressed deeper into the Analyst class, or went on to the next level: introduction to the Neural Interface System. 

_That_ was what Obi-Wan was after. 

A massive amount of information flowed into the Order’s databanks every day. It was sorted and viewed and studied in at least a cursory fashion, picked clean of important information, then filed away. Obviously, no sentient workforce could handle the volume—they were sitting atop a mountain of data from all over the galaxy. Some of the initial filtering could be outsourced, but it barely came to a percent of the total. So of course artificial intelligence had been tasked with most of the work. 

The problem with AI was that it made decisions based on patterns, and didn’t always know when to deviate from them. It was conspicuously evident that some droids could learn to accept deviations, but this was often a side effect of cluttered and expanded memory banks that hadn’t been wiped over the course of years and years. Unfortunately, that sort of retention was also a security risk for the Order. 

So some sentients were still involved in the data-processing stages. The Neural Interface was something that could make the process faster and easier—but, of course, there was a catch. 

The tech training program was largely focused on mental discipline. Over the course of their training, candidates constructed a mental filing system, much like a mind-Temple. Only, this Temple had to make space for all the data the Order's system contained—everything that passed through it in a day, through processing and before archival. 

As with everything, there were massive risks; if an insufficiently prepared candidate entered the Neural Interface, psychic shock would be the very least of their worries. 

Obi-Wan sighed, and sat down at his new terminal, nudging it awake. His mind automatically ran through the list of immediate tasks—set up his account, check messages for assignments, link the comms… 

“Kenobi, was it?”

Obi-Wan straightened in his seat immediately and looked up into those piercing bright blue eyes. “Yes, sir.” 

It still took some effort to tamp down the automatic impulse to rise to his feet and stand at attention, but it was getting easier. He didn’t think duCrion missed the aborted movement, though. 

“With your test results, one might’ve thought you’d go into the operative group,” duCrion said thoughtfully. “Why the Analysts?” 

_Changing careers,_ Obi-Wan thought before he could stop himself. DuCrion raised an eyebrow, which did nothing to reassure Obi-Wan about the mind-reading thing. “I would be much more useful in intelligence-gathering on the tech side. I’d rather be support for the operatives, ensure that they succeed in the field.” 

DuCrion nodded. “Solid reasoning. Think you’re better than the others here?” 

“Try me.” 

The words were delivered quietly, without hubris or challenge. DuCrion regarded him steadily for a moment, and then accepted the response. 

“Do your worst,” duCrion said, and left Obi-Wan to it. Seconds later an assignment appeared in his inbox. 

“Jheramahd and Shimun Greyshade,” he read. Just two names. 

Well. He could work with that. 

* * *

Obi-Wan’s immediate neighbour to his right was a green-skinned Mirialan, Barriss Offee. A midnight-blue pattern of diamond tattoos spread over the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. She was quiet, constantly and reliably hard at work. 

Kit Fisto wasn’t a neighbour, strictly speaking. His desk was two rows in front, but Kit himself seemed to be everywhere at once. The Nautolan was easy-going, talkative. He could also sit down and do in twenty minutes a task that might’ve taken some hours to complete, and he tended to be more helpful than distracting. 

Pong Krell was a quiet and somewhat gloomy presence in the far corner. The Besalisk rarely spoke, though he was always unfailingly polite. 

It was a strange crowd. The analyst pool consisted of some thirty people—a count that did not include duCrion’s Oracle Group. Oracle did predictive analytics; Obi-Wan and the rest of the analyst pool did fairly routine investigation, albeit from behind a commset screen. 

They certainly didn’t all have the same approach to it. 

“Great Force,” Kit uttered, abruptly halting in his passage behind Obi-Wan’s chair one day, “what the hell is _that?_ ” 

“Medical examiner’s report,” Obi-Wan answered absently, peering at some cramped handwriting on a scanned flatpic. 

“You’re actually reading that?” 

Obi-Wan hummed a noncommittal note. “The Sith is in the details, and all that.” 

Krell, snorted—a surprising, brassy sound. “They still tell those old tales in the Crèche?” 

In the distorted and muted reflection on the screen, Obi-Wan saw Kit shoot a mildly reproving look in Krell’s general direction. “He has a point, though. The Sith is in the details because it’s easy to get lost in there. Be careful, firstie. Getting too carried away to file a complete report is… not a good look.” 

“Not that we haven’t all done it, once or twice. Or six times,” Barriss said. 

There was a certain edge to the comment. One that found its mark, apparently: Kit winced and left Obi-Wan alone. 

“What he means,” Barriss explained a moment later, quietly, “is that you shouldn’t lose track of the relevant information. If that’s Greyshade’s autopsy report you’re looking at, you’re fine.” 

“Yes, thank you.” 

“But what I don’t understand,” Barriss went on, “is where you even managed to find it. I certainly never saw one.” 

Obi-Wan briefly cut his gaze toward her. “Check the court records; the magistrate ordered the report sealed.” 

Then there was the fact that the investigation of Greyshade’s death had been batted around divisions, and expedited through the system at multiple levels. All that paperwork had caught Obi-Wan’s attention. 

Barriss swore, soft and sharp. “Okay. But if it’s sealed, how do you have it? What did you do, slice into the Judiciary to get it?” 

Obi-Wan snorted. “A two-year-old could do that and they’d never know.” 

Arguably, by slicing into the Medical Examiners’ database, he’d done worse—violating scores of medical privacy and confidentiality agreements and laws. Still, Obi-Wan figured it was probably better than slicing into Coruscant’s Judiciary. Backlogged as the courts were, there was plenty of active information for a slicer to take advantage of. Obi-Wan had been careful to avoid the merest suggestion of impropriety. 

Barriss wasn’t worried about that at all, apparently. “How the hell did you even know to look for it?” she wanted to know. 

“I wanted to track the investigation,” said Obi-Wan with a faint shrug. “Wrote a bot whose only job was to look for Greyshade’s name in connection with a murder investigation.”

The industrious little bit of coding had turned up a lot more than he’d expected, in actual fact. Shimun Greyshade was nothing like his late cousin. 

Barriss was still staring at him. “Okay,” she said finally. “Yeah. That checks out.” 

“What does?” Obi-Wan wasn’t sure he wanted to know. 

“You’re a trainee who’s been dumped right into duCrion’s analyst pool for your first placement.” Barriss shrugged. “That’s not typical. Xan doesn’t take trainees. Particularly not Neural Interface class—you NI candidates don’t get a lot of time or brain-RAM to keep up easily with the work.” 

Obi-Wan wasn’t about to argue with that, because it made sense, and it was very likely true. The demands on his time were certainly not inaccurate. 

* * *

There was no city in the galaxy quite like Coruscant. It was a city forever in motion, artificially constructed and kept spinning by the combined effort of millions of droids and organics each day. Traffic alone was constantly controlled; the sheer density of life and daily mass of movement could not be permitted to hiccup, at risk of creating a level-wide gridlock at best, or planetary standstill at worst. Stagnation took over quickly, and stagnation was death. 

Corulag was much less densely packed, and quieter, and probably even safer—less like balancing on the edge of a vibroblade. But everything moved at a more deliberate pace, just shy of fast enough, and it had strained Mace Windu’s patience. The speeches, the presentations, the vote and the negotiations at the Summit had dragged on endlessly as it was; keeping up a merry conversation with all the aircar drivers, the hotel personnel, the attendants and guards at the Summit itself—

Mace was thoroughly relieved at the brusque rudeness that had welcomed him home. He was bundled into the aircar, his single bag of luggage stuffed efficiently into the boot. The pilot ignored him, after he had a credit code to charge. 

Mace had taken a slightly different approach to his security since his last meeting with Director am-Norayr. Giving his security team the slip on Corulag, in the middle of Adjesk Spaceport, had been an impulsive decision and probably not his finest one. But he’d been feeling eyes on his back and over his shoulder for days, and just wanted to get free of it. 

To his immense relief, he’d managed to shake off the skin-crawling feeling of pursuit. It was oddly freeing, traveling like a low-level field operative again, like a civilian. 

Trans-galactic travel did nothing for physical comfort one way or the other, though. Mace clambered out of the aircar with a stifled groan, feeling several days of cramped and otherwise awkward seats in the tightness of his lower back. Someone must have anticipated his arrival: he could just make out the tall dark figure lurking at the edge of the Temple’s landing pad. 

“All right,” Mace admitted, “this time I’m impressed. When did you find out I was planetside?” 

DuCrion was as smug as ever. “My division has only the finest minions,” he said. 

Mace smiled—a tired grin, but a genuine one—for the first time in weeks. Of course, Xanatos had spent enough time with a certain old rogue to acquire the habit of painfully cryptic non-answers. Rather than being infuriating, these days the habit reminded Mace of better, happier times. “And what do your minions have to report?” 

“Various points of interest,” duCrion said, and gestured for Mace to enter ahead of him. 

DuCrion was exceptionally careful, even—or perhaps _especially_ —within the confines of the Temple. He rarely discussed casefiles or assignments outside of Mace’s office or his own. He seemed to have an inner map to consult with, with certain spaces neatly marked ‘Private’, but how he determined this remained a mystery to anyone else. Not even all executive offices fell into that category. 

But then again, Mace reflected, Xanatos had been trained by the most ornery paranoiac to ever come out of the Order. If he was worried about prying eyes and ears, it was only a standard precautionary measure. Probably. 

Mostly, duCrion limited topics of conversation to seemingly harmless things, like political current events. Today, as they made their way to Mace’s office, the topics of choice were conservative: travel conditions and the weather. That usually meant something rather loud was happening in the political sphere, something potentially very relevant to duCrion’s report. 

Or maybe he was just tired of the news cycle. One never could tell. 

Mace sighed and pressed his palm to his biolock. “Where’s Plo?” he asked. The Kel Dor was conspicuously absent, along with the smell of his spicy tea and the aura of peace that he seemed to carry with him. 

“They finished fixing the atmospheric controls in Plo’s office, finally, so he’s moved back downstairs to Medical.” 

“Aw hell. Guess I’ll have to start booking appointments like the rest of you. Right—what do you have for me?”

DuCrion waited for him to sit down, then settled in one of the chairs across the desk, immediately businesslike. “Investigation into Senator Jheramahd Greyshade’s death is pending, but while the authorities of Columex are silent on the matter, our people suspect foul play.” 

“How do they justify this suspicion?” 

“Shimun Greyshade is currently the favourite for emergency Senatorial appointment. He has quite a gambling problem, and owes vast sums to various lenders. Recently, however, the Banking Clan was apparently persuaded to open a new line of credit for him, and some of his debts have been pardoned. We’re looking into his financial records, but—well, it’s messy. The Banking Clan isn’t exactly free with its records, either.” 

“I bet.” Mace sat back. “So Columex willingly and knowingly appointed—or will appoint—a man who can and has been a target for extortion.” 

“And the medical examiner’s records of Jheramahd’s autopsy are sealed. But we have a copy.” Xanatos passed a datapad across the desk. 

Mace hesitated. “Should I ask _how_ we have a copy?” 

“Best not.” 

Mace limited his criticism to a single raised eyebrow and scanned the files open on the pad. “I’ll say this for your minions, they are remarkably thorough.”

“The notes, I believe, are most illuminating.” 

And they were, Mace agreed. Xanatos’ team had outdone themselves this time, presenting him with a practically minute-by-minute record of key events. 

The team of investigators assigned to the mysterious death of a Senator arrived to a scene that had already, to all appearances, been processed. When they contacted their superior officer, they’d been informed that one of the Senate Bureau’s teams claimed the case. The investigators were dismissed. 

Official Senate Bureau documents connected to the investigation—for example, a record of evidence collected from the scene, authorisations, warrants, transfer orders—were conspicuously absent. The medical examiner, on the other hand, had been very thorough in his documentation. His report had been committed to the record system, and it could not be easily scrubbed or overwritten, but it could be sealed. 

As, indeed, it had been. But that wasn’t much of a deterrent to a dedicated Temple slicer. 

“Blood and tissue test results consistent with an overdose of a psychotropic strain of _ryll,_ ” Mace read. “That sounds unpleasant.” 

“Very. There’s no indication that he had been pushed off the landing platform, but in that condition—” Xan shrugged. 

“All right, so Columex is about to make some interesting new policy decisions. Any idea what kind?”

“Taxes, as usual. Security. Refugees.” DuCrion tapped his foot, uncharacteristically disturbed. “And there's that Intelligence Coalition you discussed at the conference on Corulag.” 

“They’re short a crucial number of votes,” Mace said. “It won’t get approval.”

The Senate Committee for Defence of the Republic was doing its best to sway several major worlds, but even Kinman Doriana’s charm hadn’t yet proven equal to the task, quite. Of course, Columex was a valuable target: nine of its neighbouring sectors almost always voted the same way. 

Still, “They won’t get their approval with one dead Senator—not even if all the other major players on the Hydian Way decide to change their vote.” 

DuCrion shrugged. “Then Columex is just the beginning.” 

“Any idea who else could be a target?” 

A small number of techs who reported to duCrion were codenamed the Oracle group, the ones who wrote models to watch the markets and crafted simulations for almost anything. Asking them to name possible targets was probably like asking them to find a pebble in a quarry, these days. 

Xanatos blew out a sharp breath. “It’s complicated. Columex and its neighbours have a vested economic interest in participating in the Coalition—they have major companies producing some sensitive devices and materials. Jheramahd was always opposed, and his funding came from other areas. Changing the Senator must’ve seemed easier than messing with public opinion. Considering this Coalition is a matter of public safety…” 

Mace couldn’t pin down what he was feeling. Resignation, he supposed. “Should we be expecting acts of terrorism?” 

As if the assassination of a Senator on a relatively safe and prosperous world didn’t already, in some ways, qualify. In a cold war, allowing the merest hint of panic was tantamount to striking a match in a powder magazine. 

Xanatos must have been thinking the same, given the pale and set look on his face. “If it’s really about the Coalition, I can offer a list of possible targets. But I cannot narrow down the motive behind his assassination to a single cause.” 

“Well, as we know, that’s hardly ever the case,” Mace allowed. “Just one last thing to break the eopie’s back, shall we say. If everything were so simple as that, we wouldn’t have a use for the whole Intelligence outfit.” 

“That would be an awful shame, for me and all the slicers in my care.” 

Mace chuckled. “How’s the new crop from the Crèche?” 

“Not bad,” Xan admitted, grudgingly, “to my surprise. We have a bright one, this time. Former Anaxes Navy, though he does everything in his power short of altering his service record to draw attention away from it.” 

That was curious. “Now why would he want to do that?”

Xanatos shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Whatever happened, it wasn’t the sort of thing to show up on his performance reviews. I'm sure we’ll find out eventually, but for now I’m willing to let it lie. He’s very thorough, very resourceful.” 

Mace could read between the lines well enough. “You want to keep this one.” 

Xan sighed. “The Archive’ll want him, for Quartermaster,” he said. “I think he’s a good choice for it, too.” 

“Quartermaster,” Mace echoed. “There are very few people who can take that role. You think so?” 

Xan smiled, something crooked and familiar—another man’s smile on a much younger face. “He wants it,” the tech executive said. “That means he‘ll get it.”

Mace nodded. “Good. It’s about time we could put someone there full-time. Plo’s getting worried about the additional strain.” 

Xan frowned quickly. “Is it very serious?” 

“No threat to anyone’s health,” Mace reassured him. “The Interface isn’t optimised for team operations. In the current configuration, a lot of energy is being diverted to maintain communication between the support team members. It’s not an efficient set-up.” 

“I imagine optimising the Interface for team operations might come in handy in the future,” Xanatos said mildly. 

“If someone had come to me last year and proposed this project, I would have given them time in the simulators without a second thought,” Mace said. “But we’ve been forced to adapt in real time. Person-to-person neural links are still much more complicated than the Interface, which already exposes a being to practically infinite information at super-organic processing speeds. Person-to-person requires compatibility, and that’s an entirely new parameter—one we barely know how to test for. Take your bright new tech, for example: can you think of anyone he’d be compatible with offhand?” 

Xanatos, oddly enough, froze. For less than a second, but he stuttered just the same. Mace raised an eyebrow, curious. 

“No,” duCrion said. 

“Why the hesitation?” 

DuCrion shifted uncomfortably. “Field instinct,” he offered. 

“Field instinct” was a known phenomenon, one that kept field operatives alive and drove their handlers mad. Sometimes an operative inexplicably chose to deviate from their pre-set route. They avoided accidents, or caught their target unprepared. Sometimes, that instinct whispered, “take your weapon with you,” or maybe “draw”, and the extra second of warning saved their lives. 

And sometimes it offered an intuitive leap that defied all logical explanation. 

Mace nodded. “May I ask—?” 

DuCrion’s lips thinned. “Last I heard, person-to-person neural ties don’t work with dead men.” 

“No.” Mace suddenly felt, with the uncanny certainty of that cold prickle down his spine, that he knew who Xanatos was thinking of. “No, they don’t.” 

“Well, that’s a shame.” Xanatos’ smile looked a bit cracked. 

_Yes, it is,_ Mace thought. He was a bit intrigued, though. He wanted to meet this young, promising fellow—later. 

“I need to ask a favour of you,” Mace said carefully, “off the record.” 

Xan straightened in his seat. “I’m listening.” 

“I want to track a certain individual. Travel patterns, physical movements, behaviours, meetings.” 

“It’s what we do best,” Xan said. “Who’s your person of interest?” 

“Well that’s where this goes entirely off the record,” said Mace. “Valdis Palpatine.” 

“Ah.” Xanatos frowned, and tilted his head slightly, staring at a point on Mace’s desk. “I’ll need to make sure that the people working on this know how to stay undetected.” 

“And the transfer to the Joint Intelligence Coalition is only two months away, so there is a kind of deadline. From that point forward we will most likely have Empire Holdings looking over our shoulders and through our commsets with their fine state-of-the-art spyware.” 

“Probably.” Xanatos nodded decisively and rose. “Consider it done.” 

At that moment, Mace’s comms—all four of them—erupted into angry buzzing. As the comms were relegated to the upper right drawer of his desk whenever he took meetings, the resulting racket was mindful of a knytix hive in mating season. 

Xanatos, bewildered, checked his own wristcomm. “Oh, now that’s interesting.” 

“What?” 

“There’s been an attack on the Onderon Embassy on Anaxes.” 

Mace froze, hand hovering over the desk drawer where he kept his comms when he took meetings. “Anaxes, the seat of the Naval Academy and the Admiralty.” 

“The same.” 

“An attack on the Onderon Embassy. One of the few governments whose sovereignty the Senate was almost prepared to recognise.” 

“Exactly.” 

Mace casually flicked the drawer closed. “Oh, _good.”_

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well that’s vexing,” Obi-Wan told his commset screen.

Candidates for Neural Interface Training split their time between their active position on an assigned team and simulation training. Two days into their first assignment—Obi-Wan already knew more about Shimun’s mistresses than he could ever have wanted—they were herded into the training area, finally gathered all in one place: the Stage, their instructor called it. They got to see who’d moved up to the next round, and who hadn’t made the cut—or chosen not to pursue this particular program. 

The Stage was a brightly lit, wide-open space with one rather ominous Chair sitting in the middle of it. Clearly the candidates weren’t the ones who’d chosen the name for the room: “Stage” was short for “Staging Area”—definitely the training masters’ parlance. Obi-Wan thought trainees might’ve called it The Throneroom, or maybe even The Box despite its size and airiness. 

Three or four instructors were scattered throughout the room, but only one, Master Eeth Koth, addressed the group at large. The others hovered, their relentless examination of the ‘new crop’ setting the candidates’ teeth on edge. A test, Obi-Wan assumed, to see how they might hold up under continuous and blatantly frosty observation. 

There was a medical team on standby, huddled in the far corner like watchful shriekhawks and not making for a very reassuring sight. 

Training for compatibility with the Neural Interface System was grueling. The foundations of mental discipline had been taught in the Crèche, but the scale required for the Interface was something entirely different. 

“The simulation,” their instructor explained by way of introduction, “presents you with a snapshot of the system. It is updated regularly. Part of your daily task here is to determine if and when the update occurred. 

“When you’re introduced to the Interface, you’ll have to field all the changes in real time. That’s quite a barrage of information. If you don’t know what to prioritise, if you don’t know how to shield, you are at high risk for a neural overload.” 

The first departure from standard training was exactly this: giving trainees the run of the whole system. divisions in the Temple were strictly enforced by firewalls, physical structures, and even shifts. Tasks were highly specialised, cross-communication between teams kept to a minimum. Only the Executive level ever got to see the “big picture”—and that, most often, was not a great deal bigger than the picture their underlings got to see. 

One might imagine this would do more harm than good. At times, it probably did. But it was also a guarantee of security unlike any other. Most secret labs and projects were run that way—hells, even most banks. At any given time, barely a handful of people in the world might know the real objective of a classified project, mission, or site. 

A person plugged into the Neural Interface, though, potentially had access to everything—all of the information the Order collected and processed day to day, and the keys to many more doors besides. It was an extremely dangerous amount of information to expose a baseline organic to. And of course giving someone the run of the system, access to all of the Order’s resources, was a spectacular security risk. It would’ve been easier, some argued, to ensure the loyalty of a droid. 

But the Order had tried that already. In fact, the Neural Interface existed because it had grown out of the attempt. Most of the Temple’s business these days was in data-mining and processing, rather than good old Sent-Int. Indeed, Sentient Intelligence was acknowledged as a useful tool—the very best, back when the Order chose and ran its own operations and tasks with minimal Senate oversight. But under pressure to keep up with a whole galaxy it simply hadn’t been enough. 

Years ago, the Temple had devised an artificial intelligence to help it sort through the massive amount of data the Order acquired. They found in short order that the AI relied too heavily on patterns—patterns that made sense to a computer, but were absolutely inapplicable to the real world. AI’s learned fast, but not fast enough to avoid costly mistakes. When they did learn, it was often time to wipe their data-banks again, for security purposes… and to prevent the AI from developing its own free will, because that immediately put a mere machine’s loyalty in question. 

Organics, by contrast, were easier to train and control. The Neural Interface System had been something of a compromise: an artificial intelligence that did most of the filtering under supervision, and passed flagged cases directly to the appropriate party. Archivists (unofficially, “Datamongers”) determined the usefulness of data recovered from the field; the Sentinels watched for unusual activity—potential slicer attacks, malware, and the like. 

Quartermasters supplied and ran the active operations. And Quartermasters, inevitably, saw  _ everything  _ in real time. 

Not all of the candidates for the Neural Interface Training would complete the program. This was a given; it was why they were merely called “candidates”. On the bright side, if a candidate had been good enough to  _ attempt  _ the program, there was always some alternative placement available. Many went on to the executive rank, becoming members of that select class of people who got to see the bigger picture: a complete mission, or the complex interplay of several running in parallel. 

“Remember,” training master Eeth Koth concluded his impromptu orientation speech, “the AI is there to help you, but you are the Order’s first line of defence. No pressure, gentlebeings. Don’t get lost, and don’t burn out.” 

“Encouraging,” Obi-Wan muttered dryly, much to his neighbour’s amusement. 

Bultar Swan smiled at him, and bumped into his shoulder companionably. “Just you wait for the med team to run through the risks.”

The risks were, of course, typical of allowing anything with the potential to alter neurochemistry and signalling near one’s brain. There was also no telling how prolonged exposure would affect an individual. The team had worked out a strict regimen of time in and out of the Interface, and any candidate who chose to ignore that regimen did so at their peril. 

After a cursory introduction to the structure of the Interface, the instructors put the candidates through a series of puzzles and memory games, and there ended the lesson. 

“Not disappointed, are you?” Swan asked as they filed out and back to their assigned workplaces. 

Obi-Wan shrugged. “Plenty of time for that later,” he said. 

Bultar laughed, and waved cheerily as she split off to her corner in Financial Forensics. 

By the time Obi-Wan reached his desk, he had a new assignment ( _ Steela and Saw Gerrera  _ ), along with a personalised post-script from Xanatos duCrion regarding his previous report:  _ Very thorough. I trust you will maintain this quality throughout.  _

“No rest for the wicked, eh, Kenobi?” Barriss had just come back from the commissary with a cup of steaming caff. “You know the whole, ‘if they realise you’re efficient they'll only give you more work to do’ concept still applies in the Order.” 

“Says you,” Obi-Wan countered, “but I saw your report on the various tensions at play in the Rishi Maze. You’re on track for joining the Oracle group this year.” 

“Sure, and it’s only my fifth year covering the Maze,” Barris said, amused. “You’re on track for joining the Oracle group  _ next  _ year, and you’re a trainee. To which I can only say: I want whatever’s in your caff.”

Obi-Wan snorted, minimised the task window and set up his next search. 

He’d barely gotten through half the parameters before a Priority One message took over his screen. A number of neighbouring consoles started chiming in an unholy racket—Obi-Wan, at least, had muted all the notifications first thing. Slightly irritated, he wondered if it would be possible to ignore the message and get back to what he was doing. Priority One alerts were rare, certainly, but surely that didn’t mean everyone had to immediately drop what they were doing…? 

Barriss’s gasp gave him pause. 

“What is it?” 

The colour of her cheeks had dulled somewhat. “Someone blew up the Onderon Embassy on Anaxes. That’s our new assignment: find out who the hell’s behind it, and whether they mean to start a war.” 

Obi-Wan blinked at her, uncomprehending. “Why—? Onderon’s Embassy? On Anaxes?” None of it made any sense. 

Barriss just gestured at the screen. “The Senate’s on high alert. All other assignments are considered placed on hold, Kenobi. Indefinitely.” 

Obi-Wan merely raised an eyebrow. “All right, then,” he muttered under his breath, and turned back to his screen. No rest for the wicked, indeed. 

* * *

  


Twenty-six hours later, Obi-Wan was still wrestling with the wretched thing, sifting through surveillance footage that Anaxes officials had ever so graciously provided. 

“Well that’s vexing,” Obi-Wan told his commset screen. 

The commset didn’t respond, and the quality of the vidstream certainly did not improve. It was surprisingly awful for Pols Anaxes city monitoring—like someone had walked by with a signal jammer, or tagged every camm-post with one. That sort of interference tech was usually fairly specialised and expensive, and it bothered Obi-Wan that none of the reports trickling in from Anaxes had noted anything of the kind. 

They would know what to look for. On such a heavily monitored world, the atmosphere forever straddled subdued nihilism and outright protest—a hothouse for any form of anti-tech, anti-spying counterculture. Plenty of foolish youngsters made a sport of hiding from the camms, learning the city’s catacombs and tinkering with home-made signal jammers. Most of the successful ones didn’t realise until far too late that it was their  _ invisibility  _ that set them apart from the rest, and got them precisely the sort of attention they were trying to avoid. (That, as a matter of fact, was exactly how Obi-Wan had earned the Naval Academy’s notice.) 

Local authorities in the city of Pols Anaxes had no suspects; Anaxes’ own major intelligence networks had little to add to the city’s report. No local groups or individuals had taken credit and no one had expressed any interest in targeting Onderon’s embassy. 

It was a brazenly political act, a galactic statement, on a world where people were much more interested in their local troubles. Anaxes as a whole was a very neutral figure in the galactic cold war, and maintained its Republic membership by virtue of its location more than anything else. It had the shipping lanes, of course, and trade alliances: Rim-world ore suppliers always sold at lower prices than Core-world mines, and Anaxes had its shipyards to run. As a consequence, the Azure Sector remained one of the most Republic-aligned systems that still maintained key trading partnerships with the Confederacy. 

Had the Senate recognised Onderon as a sovereign power at the next Assembly (and of course, turned a blind eye to Onderon’s relationship with the Confederacy), Onderon’s partnership with Anaxes Shipyards would have remained secure. Now it would be subject to high import taxes at a minimum, and very likely to interruptions of service. 

Between the sparse evidence from Anaxes and the fact that no local groups had taken credit for the attack, it seemed increasingly likely that some external party was involved. An external party, with a vested interest in swaying Anaxes’ position in the galactic conflict or influencing their trade agreements. Someone who could hire a mercenary, provide them with whatever they might need, and tell them to set explosive charges on a world, in a building, to which they had no connection. 

Naturally, this elevated the investigation to the Senate’s notice. The glaring lack of suspects after three days’ worth of work immediately made it the Order’s problem, as far as the Senate was concerned. 

Obi-Wan glowered at his commset, and tried not to grind his teeth. Sure, they were fighting a cold war; sure, the war mostly broke the galaxy apart into Core circles and Rimward sectors; but he increasingly felt there was a third player with a pure economic motive, and fighting corporate influence was incredibly difficult. They had money to throw around, and that alone meant they could hire anyone they wanted, shower them with resources, and make everyone else’s job too damn difficult. 

For instance: Anaxes was thoroughly capable of solving its own problems. The entire planet was under surveillance—privacy had long since become a whispery myth. The easiest way to throw a wrench in the system was depressingly simple: hire an off-worlder. 

Tracking off-worlders always presented a significantly greater challenge: there was next to no information from which to construct a profile. The attack had been planned meticulously, by someone who knew how to cover their tracks. Ordinarily, a mercenary might have needed at least a tenday to case the embassy; but if someone provided them with the building schematics, explosive charges, and discreet jamming equipment, it was possible to cut preparation time down to two days. 

Filtering through all arrivals processed in all of the planet’s spaceports, with no concept of how long the attacker might have waited before carrying out their mission and thus no idea of what  _ timeframe  _ to search within—well, it was a good enough task to hand over to a neural interface. 

Obi-Wan set a program to scan them, nonetheless. He’d probably find at least four hundred suspicious entries  _ a day,  _ but that was all right. 

He set up a different search on the bounty hunter message boards. The public forums weren’t necessarily a likely place for such a job posting, but he wasn’t looking for  _ this  _ assignment, specifically. After all, he was looking for a specific skill set. 

“Everything all right?” 

Obi-Wan glanced up at duCrion, mildly surprised by the question. Technically, as a trainee and the most recent addition to duCrion’s team, he was still the most junior member. He’d very quickly grown used to being left to his own devices. It was a vast relief, not having to answer for something or someone all the time. 

“There’s not a lot to go on, here,” Obi-Wan admitted. “Mostly, I suspect if I come up with anything, it’ll be the luckiest stab in the dark I’ve ever managed.” 

The corner of duCrion’s mouth twitched suspiciously. “And do you still believe in luck, Commander Kenobi?” 

“I’m retired,” Obi-Wan said mildly. “But as any spacer will tell you: when all that’s between you and the vacuum of space is a thin plate of durasteel, you’d best believe in something.” 

It was a deliberate non-answer; but duCrion merely inclined his head and accepted it. “Any headway with the Gerrera siblings?”

“Some. The brother, Saw, has a military background, but he dropped out of the Academy after their parents died in an energy plant meltdown. Ostensibly, Saw left the Academy to care for his sister, but within a year he was persuaded to join a group of eco-terrorists who called themselves the Drexl. Steela joined them soon after, in spite of her brother’s protests. The Drexl attacked various mining operations and disabled processing plants over the course of some six years, before the majority of the leadership was captured and killed.” 

“But not Saw.”

“Steela and Saw escaped, and formed a new group of extremists—mostly on the basis of surviving Drexl contacts, but they’ve welcomed a number of like-minded newcomers. They are not all too pleased with what they see as the Confederate takeover of Onderon, despite the fact that the Confederate presence has brought with it significant improvements in the form of aid and environmental restoration.”

“You find their story sympathetic,” duCrion said, tone neutral. 

Obi-Wan hesitated. “In a sense. They’re idealists fighting for what they think is right, but they’re not playing with a full deck of cards.” 

“An apt description,” duCrion agreed. “What can you tell me about the siblings individually? Who leads their new group?”

“Saw assumed leadership, as the most senior surviving Drexl member. Steela is the more capable leader of the two, however. Her brother still sees her as someone to protect, but he is hot-headed, impulsive, as is consistent with his record at the Academy. Steela led one mission with the Drexl, which held together very well. She’s been increasingly taking control of key operations.”

“So if we were, for instance, to approach this group in an effort to establish a presence on Onderon…” 

Obi-Wan arched an eyebrow. “Well, you would definitely want to approach Steela: Saw is very much a traditionalist. Why? Are we looking to overthrow a government?” 

DuCrion sighed, and settled on the corner of the unoccupied desk across the aisle from Obi-Wan. “A tenday ago, we were just ‘keeping our options open’,” he said. “If the Senate had agreed to recognise Onderon as an independent power in their own right, the only use we’d have for the Gerrera’s rebels would be to keep a close eye on things—boots on the ground, if you will. But with the attack on the Embassy, we have no idea what their next move will be.” 

“Ah—” Obi-Wan brought up another tab. “Onderon’s reporting on the incident has been fairly muddled, but no one’s pointed fingers or named names yet.” 

“Rather irregular for a politically motivated act of terror,” duCrion noted. 

“My first thought was that this was an economically motivated act.” 

“Why?” 

Obi-Wan glanced up, but duCrion only looked curious. “No manifesto from the attackers, no warning ahead of time. The most superficial reason to target the embassy on Anaxes— _ specifically  _ Anaxes—is their trade partnership with Onderon.” 

The corners of duCrion’s lips twitched upward. “Most superficial reason?” 

“I’m leaving my options open,” Obi-Wan quipped. Then, more seriously, “We don’t know what effects this may have just yet.”

“Good point—” DuCrion cut himself off and reached for his comm, brows drawing together. The expression turned to outright bemusement. “Are you getting this?” 

At that moment Obi-Wan’s commset chimed an alert. “Message from Anaxes Homeworld Security’s Investigative Branch?” 

“That’s the one.” 

Obi-Wan frowned at his screen. The embassy’s security division had shared the content of their salvaged data. “Where’d they find those vidfeed files? I thought they said the embassy’s server room burned completely.” 

DuCrion shook his head. “There’s usually a buffer system, isn’t there? 

“Certainly,” said Obi-Wan, “accessible via hard connection from certain very specific points within the embassy itself. Those should have been knocked out by the blast. There’s that, and then there’s the fact that the embassy building is still cordoned off: the remains are structurally unsound and slated for demolition.”

DuCrion blinked at him owlishly, then shrugged. “Who knows; at least they have a suspect for us.” 

The dismissal was too easy, too lightly spoken; duCrion’s manner was far too casual. “Well,” said Obi-Wan, “I suppose we should at least find out who their suspect is.”

The buffer typically contained a Galactic Standard day’s worth of security feed data. On top of visual feeds, this included a record of staff ID-chip scans with locations, keystroke logs, and audio recording. Onderon’s intelligence organisations were always thorough, but that amount of information could be considered overkill even for them. The embassy had to conform to certain Anaxes regulations and standards in order to count on assistance from local authorities, should anything go wrong. 

Obi-Wan’s mouth twisted. “The embassy was severely understaffed.” 

“I suppose that means the charges could have been set from inside the building after all,” duCrion mused. 

The embassy had been reluctant to acknowledge that possibility—understandably reluctant, given the implications of an ‘inside job’. But it was much more difficult to target the server room in an explosion with charges set in areas of public access. 

“Well, assuming it wasn’t an inside job…” 

Obi-Wan uploaded the regular staff’s identification holos into his biometrics recognition program. He figured it would be best to start by looking for people who didn’t match the Onderon contingent within two hours of the explosion. 

What Obi-Wan didn’t expect was for the program to deliver a result within seconds: a still image, and a rather grainy, half-blurred one at that. What little was visible of the intruder was certainly striking: they seemed taller than the average Human, with long hair and a neat beard, dressed in a loose dark coat and trousers. 

Beside him, Obi-Wan heard a sharp intake of breath: duCrion had soundlessly stepped across the aisle to peer over his shoulder. “You know who that is?” Obi-Wan asked. 

“Yes.” 

DuCrion’s voice was strangely hollow. Obi-Wan glanced up at him, and bit back a concerned query; duCrion looked rather paler than usual, very nearly a sickly green. 

“That’s Qui-Gon Jinn.” 

* * *

Alik had been exceptionally helpful and thorough as always. Mace and Yoda had taken a tour of the new facilities earlier that day—the Joint Intelligence Coalition’s futuristic surveillance nest. Some of the internal structures were still being mounted and patched, yet it still managed to make an impression. The whole building was a sleek monstrosity of transparisteel and shiny metal—state of the art, cutting edge, and all of those pretty words people liked to throw around. 

Except, since this was built with virtually unlimited funds from the private sector, this time the money backed up all those pretty claims. 

All those claims, and more: Alik’s notes showed that the walls had eyes and ears, and described very precisely where those were and how they worked.  _ Workarounds still pending,  _ a handwritten note added,  _ and I’m sure we’ll find more when we get there.  _ The elegant script leant a kind of morbid humour to it all. 

Yoda hadn’t even seemed concerned. 

Mace’s office-comm blinked. He glanced at it, then at the chrono, and sent a signal to decline. He had an appointment with Yoda in ten minutes to debrief and decide how they were going to move a large bulk of the personnel out of the Temple and into the new offices. It would have to be the Analysts, for the most part—the Temple was too integral to the Order to be completely abandoned. The point of the Join Intelligence Agency was to pool analytical resources, anyway. 

Mace sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Logistics headaches were the worst. 

His office was soundproofed. Beyond the office-comm, he had no real idea what was going on outside. Even so, he wasn’t particularly surprised when Xan walked right in, without so much as an invitation or a warning. 

All right— _ technically,  _ Mace supposed, the signal he’d declined qualified as a warning. 

Xan might as well have been barging into his own office, loose-limbed and in an absolute, tightly-reigned rage. 

Mace didn’t even twitch. “Yes?” 

“You need a new assistant,” Xan told him airily, and swaggered over to a chair. “What’s that, the third one this month?”

“You could stop scaring the shit out of all of them,” Mace pointed out reasonably. 

“If they can't handle me at my best, they won’t survive you at your worst.”

“That’s true, but have you considered: none of them are required to handle me at my worst. Nor, for that matter, you at your absolute best.” Mace closed the file he’d been poring over. “What happened?” 

Xan stared levelly at him. “I’m going to ask a question, and I’m going to ask that you do not give me any official-sounding runaround shit.” 

Mace coughed. “All right.” 

“What happened on Malastare?” 

Mace wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but certainly it wasn’t that. “We were called upon to exfiltrate a defector from the Confederacy, a high-ranking member of the Confederate Intelligence Agency. The mission was disrupted by Aurra Sing, you and Qui-Gon gave chase, and then it all went to shit.” 

“The  _ chase  _ wasn’t considered a sign of the mission going to shit, then?” 

“Most of Jinn’s missions would have qualified for a shit-show if we used that as a standard. Why the question, Xanatos?” 

Xan frowned, and tapped the passcode into an encrypted datapad. “Because a dead man blew up an embassy on Anaxes, and I need to know if this is something you knew about. Or Yoda, for that matter.” 

“A dead—” Mace stared at the image on the datapad, open-mouthed. “This isn’t doctored?” 

“Not that we can tell. Which isn’t a guarantee, of course, but…” 

_ But,  _ Mace agreed. “All right. Let’s go see the troll about this, shall we?” 

On their way out, as Mace locked the office door, he glanced at his assistant's abandoned desk. “What did you say to him, out of curiosity?” 

“Nothing, really,” Xan said with a casual shrug. “Why, looking for ammunition of your own?” 

“Considering appropriate vengeance,” Mace replied. “For meddling with my support staff.” 

Xan just smiled. 

The walk to the only bank of lifts that went up to the central tower made Mace’s skin crawl. The halls were too quiet, the air felt charged, like something was about to go very wrong. It wasn’t even late in the day, yet the Temple felt deserted. 

“Does anyone else know about this?” he asked under his breath. 

“The NI candidate, the one I told you about. He doesn’t know any details. I checked the recordings for any sign of tampering myself, on archive equipment. They don’t mind, and they also don’t look twice if you purge records.”

That gave Mace a moment’s pause, until he remembered—“Right, they still process hardcopy sensitive material.” 

“Don’t want any hint of that in accessible buffer storage,” Xan agreed. “No one else knows.” 

“All right.” 

They walked another moment in silence before Xan, uncharacteristically nervous, broke it again. “Yoda would’ve told us, surely? At least he would’ve told you.”

Force, Mace thought, but Xanatos suddenly sounded so  _ young.  _ Like he still believed in the Order, and in doing the right thing. Mace thought he’d lost that shine on Malastare. 

Then again, Xan was relatively young for his high rank in the Order—a fact which Mace sometimes forgot. He also tended to forget that he was the only member of the Order who saw Yoda with regularity anymore. 

“I don't know,” Mace admitted as they reached the lifts. He punched the call button and stood back, crossing his arms. “Yoda… he’s been stepping back more and more from operations, and it started with Malastare. I think it must have been quite a blow. As I recall, he was hell-bent on getting Veneth’s intel and terminating Sing. At the expense of our own people, I thought. In the end, we got Sing. But we lost Veneth, the intel, and most of our active team. That ranks as an  _ unmitigated  _ catastrophe.” 

Xan eyed him speculatively. “Is there something I should take from this?”

“We are few, Xan. There aren’t enough of us to go around. And our training—there is nothing like it in most of the galaxy. There was a time it was understood that the Order protects its own.” 

Mace hesitated, then added, “If there is any way in the Force that Qui-Gon Jinn survived, I don’t think he would’ve come back. And I wouldn’t blame him for a second.” 

Xan seemed to curl within himself, pondering that. When the lift chimed, he let Mace pass first, then wandered in after him, still somewhere in his mind. 

“You know,” Xan said about three quarters of the way up the tower, “the way Qui-Gon’s missions had been going for years, I’m guessing this wasn’t the first time he was left for dead.” 

Mace cut a glance sideways at him. “No. But I’m certain it was the first time Yoda ordered his partner to take the shot even if it killed him.” 

“That was not an order, Mace,” Xan said quietly. “There was no possible way I could refuse, or even ignore it.” 

Mace made a valiant effort not to grind his teeth. He had suspected it for years, and still, he hadn’t expected the confirmation to hurt so much. 

“Why am I still here, Mace? Why didn’t I leave—or was that also a compulsion?” 

“No.” Mace closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Trust me, there’s no compulsion that can make you stay once you’ve decided to leave. You are here because you still believe in the Order. At least you’ve found a place in it where you’re less likely to be left for dead.”

That earned him a raw chuckle just as the elevator slowed to a halt. “Come on. Let’s see what the troll has to say about it.” 

There was a fine view of the city from this tower. The sunsets and sunrises were absolutely stunning; the transparisteel, photochromic and polarized, phased out the harsher rays and made it possible to see Coruscant City at its very best. That certainly didn’t fool anyone who’d ever been tasked with monitoring the capital of the Core, but the sights really were breathtaking. 

The Grandmaster’s office was at the highest level of the central tower. It wasn’t, as rumour would have it, the Grandmaster’s private living quarters, though the room was certainly furnished to serve that purpose in a pinch. And while Mace was prepared to stand by his assertion that the office wasn’t  _ meant  _ to be a living area, he couldn’t be certain that Yoda  _ didn’t  _ spend every moment there. 

The Grandmaster seemed inclined to give it a homey feel, anyway. There was no secretary or assistant outside the main doors. Inside, half the windows were shuttered, and plush pillow seats surrounded a low table. Yoda was pouring out three cups of tea when they entered. 

“Found something, you have,” the troll said, and beckoned them closer. 

Mace felt Xanatos freeze beside him. The poor man was still taking in the fact that there were three settings for tea. 

The lift to the central spire was one of the Temple’s blindspots: no cams, no audio, under the assumption that anyone heading up to brief the Grandmaster or coming down with them might still be discussing highly classified business. And yet the table was set for three. Yoda’s foresight could put off people with even the strongest nerves. 

The troll often left people unsettled, and most of the time he did so deliberately.  _ This  _ wasn’t intentional, though. Setting a table for three, answering questions that hadn’t yet been asked—Mace had eventually come to realise that these were accidental slips. Yoda simply tended to forget that others lived in linear time, while he seemed to have a fairly loose relationship with it altogether. 

“We’re… not sure,” Mace replied, giving Xan time to recover. He nudged the man forward, subtly guiding him to one of the seats. Xan, at least, didn’t need any additional prompting to hand the datapad over to Yoda. “Analysis indicates it’s not a fake, but we know the tests aren’t completely foolproof.” 

Yoda’s ears rose, then flattened in dismay. It was the most emotion Mace had seen out of the Grandmaster of the Order in years. 

“Not possible, this is. Die, on Malastare he did.  _ Know  _ this, we do—tried to recover him, and could not.”

“And yet,” Xanatos muttered under his breath. Even the whisper sounded cracked. 

Yoda stared at the playback, cycling through the five-second clip Xan had pulled up for the purpose. “On Anaxes, this was?” 

“At the Embassy,” Mace confirmed. 

Xanatos finally seemed to recover somewhat. “One of my analysts was able to determine on sight that Jinn has military training of some kind. Even before seeing this recording, he was working under the assumption that the attack was carried out by a mercenary or a bounty hunter, specifically by someone with military or operational training.” 

“Was he able to determine anything from the image itself?” Mace asked. 

“No.” Xan smiled, but (no doubt despite his best efforts) the expression looked more bitter than wry. “Jinn’s files are classified, aren’t they? I’m not going around handing out that kind of information to trainees fresh out of the Nursery, Interface candidates or not.” 

“Good, that is. The less they know of Jinn, the better,” the Grandmaster said. “Find him, you must. Act as we would with any deserter.” 

Xan’s expression turned blank and shuttered.  _ Leaving this part to me, then,  _ Mace thought, not without sympathy. 

“They’ll need background. I’ll speak to the Archivists about releasing some of the personnel file—” 

“Do that, you will  _ not.  _ ” 

Mace blinked. There were, certainly, any number of reasons to keep Jinn’s file away from the prying, curious minds of the Analyst class. But that raised a glaring question: “And how do you expect to find him?”

“Here, all the information is,” Yoda gestured with the datapad. “Nothing else should they require.” 

_ Whatever happened to your memory, you old troll?  _ “They have no idea what they’re up against. Jinn isn’t just some bounty hunter or mercenary. We know what happens when you send our people out after Program alums—they don’t last a day.”

Mace’s protest was met with a loud silence. 

Xan cleared his throat gently into it. “If you don’t give them something to work with, they’ll just slice into the Archive. This—” he flicked his fingers at the datapad “—isn’t enough. He covered his tracks well.” 

Yoda seemed to deflate at that. “A redacted file, you will provide. No more than that. Show it to me, you must, for approval.” 

“Very well, Grandmaster,” Mace sighed. “We still have the matter of our migration to discuss.” 

Yoda turned to Xan. “Stay for this, you must. Concern your Analysts, this does.” 

Xan wordlessly reached for his tea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what even is an update schedule 
> 
> 😘   
> cheers, and happy Sunday


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slimy CEO's and startling discoveries...

Yan sighed and surreptitiously checked his chrono. Asa noticed, of course, and prodded his side with her stylus. He carefully didn’t twitch. 

“How much longer,” he growled out of the corner of his mouth. 

“He’ll speak next,” Asa muttered back. 

“It’s a very long-winded introduction.” 

Asa’s shoulder twitched in a shadow of a shrug. “He’s funding them,” she told her datapad. “They’re kissing a—I mean, up.” 

Dooku just barely bit back a smile. 

He liked his “aide”. Asa had fought hard for the thankless job of being both his executive assistant and his bodyguard. Whipcord thin and razor-sharp, a Dathomiri orphan from Rattatak, she’d been a lethal street-fighter (and pickpocket), and Yan had always liked lethal things. Raw power of will and survival drew him in like nothing else. He liked taking them under his wing, turning them into neat, polished, shiny things, and unleashing them on the unsuspecting and unpracticed. 

And Asa liked the unsuspecting. 

At the head of the table, the hostess finally announced the person they’d been waiting for. “And now, gentle-beings, I give to you—truly, the man of our times: Valdis Palpatine!” 

“Overselling it,” Asa chided under her breath. 

Yan made a noncommittal sort of noise. 

Valdis Palpatine was certainly one of the best-known entrepreneurs of their times, Dooku reflected. He wasn’t the typical model of galactic fame—not one of the young celebrities at the helm of a burgeoning start-up business, not one of the rockstar, “innovative” crowd. He was much older, and had a kind, grandfatherly look to him. 

Yet he bounded up the stairs like a man less than half his age. The look in his eye when he reached the podium burned bright, sharp, and even hungry—certainly a match for any of the other entrepreneurs at this charity benefit. 

“Thank you,” Valdis said, his mellow voice unspooling into the air and commanding silence. 

“We began the Sanctuary Project over a decade ago, to house and protect people displaced by environmental disasters, civil wars, and revolutions. Over time, this project has become more of a journey. A  _ quest,  _ if you will, like in the old epics. Our purpose: to make the galaxy a better, safer place. 

“My guiding philosophy has always been that my success is meaningless if it does not also serve my fellow beings. To that end, I have worked tirelessly to bring some semblance of safety and security into the lives of those less fortunate. I am honoured and humbled by their perseverance, by their willingness to entrust their lives and their families’ lives to me. 

“And I am honoured that so many of you have made the choice to partake of this journey with us. With your assistance, we have now opened eighty-seven Sanctuaries all across the galaxy. We have been instrumental in passing legislation that has guaranteed assistance for worlds suffering terrible environmental disasters. And in these troubled times, now more than ever we bear the responsibility to uplift our fellow citizens of the galaxy. 

“I thank you, gentle-beings, for inviting me here tonight. Thank you for joining me on this epic quest, for lending your efforts to this noble cause.” 

Under the rumble of the applause, Asa huffed. “I retract my complaint.  _ That  _ was overselling it.” 

Yan tilted his head toward her. “Playing to the audience,” he said, nodding at the room at large. “Perfectly calibrated pathos, reinforcing the donors’ delusions of grandeur.” 

Asa’s lips thinned, pressed tightly together to hold in her amusement. 

Yan was not so amused. Oh, he was certainly impressed by Palpatine’s skill at that “perfect calibration”. After all, Valdis had somehow made an impression on Mina Bonteri, and she’d never been one for pretty speeches. 

Some ten years ago, when Yan still moved in the Republic’s political circles, he’d seen Valdis charm many a young aide or Senator. Valdis liked to paint himself in the role of a wise mentor. That would not have worked with Mina Bonteri either. Yan still hadn’t figured out how Valdis had so charmed her, and that  _ concerned  _ him. 

The crowd was slowly dispersing, ambling about the gallery. In about an hour, they would reconvene for the event of the night: a charity auction in support of sentient trafficking victims. Now was the time for all those back-room deals and negotiations the news-streams so loved to talk about. 

Yan didn’t quite expect that Valdis Palpatine would try to approach  _ him.  _

“Ah, Count Yannis! I’m so pleased you could join us. And who is your lovely companion?” 

Holding in a sigh, Count Yannis turned and bowed politely. “Valdis Palpatine,” he gestured between them, “my aide—” 

“Asajj Ventress.” 

He’d never seen the need to improve on Asa’s chilly hauteur. It was a good place to start building a public persona meant for mingling at events like these, full of people equally chilly and haughty and certain of their superiority. Asajj Ventress acted like she belonged among them, and it never failed to elicit some reaction—either acceptance or wariness. 

Valdis wasn’t the least bit put off, Yan noticed. If anything, it seemed the man was happy to rise to a challenge. 

Asa, however, did not give him the opportunity. She glanced down at her pad and quietly excused herself. 

“I am very pleased that we’ve been able to come to satisfactory terms on the shipping deal,” Valdis said. 

“Thank you for taking the time to consider our terms,” Yan returned politely. “We are most appreciative of your patience.”

“We pride ourselves on the quality of our service.” Valdis smiled faintly. “It’s good for business, encourages returning customers. I’m sure there’s much we can achieve in the future, if we work together.” 

_ That  _ was an… interesting suggestion. Yan didn’t like the sound of it. 

As Count Yannis, however, he only showed a polite, elegantly superior confusion. “I’m not sure I follow.” 

“Structuring a new government has been a difficult process, I imagine,” Valdis remarked. “It may become even more difficult to defend what you have built in the near future.” 

“You speak of war as of a certainty.”

Valdis raised an eyebrow. “Is it not? I do not seem to recall the Republic approving Onderon’s sovereignty as an independent world in the last few days. Or any Separatist system’s in the last decade, come to that. Do you believe they will suffer such dissidence to continue? Particularly now, when there’s a concern that the Azure Sector may secede from the Republic?” 

“Baseless rumours,” Yannis said, though in truth he was not so sure. If the Republic’s response to the attack on Anaxes was deemed insufficient, one or two politicians in the Azure sector could shift the conversation quite dramatically, with the right spin. 

“It would be foolish to deny that we are at odds with the Republic,” Yannis went on, “but we are not interested in fighting a war.” 

“Very well, but I don’t think I need to tell you that it would be unwise not to plan for the worst,” Valdis said, his voice low and grave. “The Republic has already begun arming itself in preparation for a preliminary strike against the Confederacy. It would not do to be caught unawares.” 

“And I suppose you know precisely what their target is?” Yan didn’t have to work to dredge up a suitably disdainful glare. “I cannot act on the basis of rumours alone, Ser Palpatine. The mere decision to acquire weapons will be interpreted as an act of aggression by the Confederacy. I am not interested in inciting conflict; I am here to keep the peace.” 

Valdis did not shrink back under the full weight of Serenno high-born scorn. On the contrary, he only pressed on more aggressively. “And how much peacekeeping have you been allowed to accomplish, Count? With respect—have you been able to negotiate with the Republic at all? Have they given you a seat at the table, and heard your concerns?” 

_ Of course not,  _ Yan thought,  _ nor had I expected them to.  _ He said nothing, however, and folded his thoughts back behind a pensive expression. 

“It must be difficult just keeping all the Separatist worlds in line, surely,” Valdis went on. “They all seceded from the Republic for different reasons, and they all want different things. Some of them want things the Confederacy  _ cannot  _ provide, because that would only foster corruption and nepotism—create the exact same conditions that caused you to  _ leave  _ the Republic in the first place.” 

Yan glanced over at the man with a wry, humourless smile. “And in the midst of all this you would publicly accuse me of funding terrorisim.” 

“I’m quite certain an independent arrangement could be achieved between those worlds and my various associates that would serve to our mutual benefit,” Valdis said airily. “You have time to consider my offer, but don’t take too long: the Republic grows restless. A pleasure doing business with you, Count.” 

Valdis stepped back and bowed politely to Yan and then to Asa, who hovered near the edge of the room. Yan allowed himself a deep breath as the man walked away, and waited for Asa to rejoin him. 

Asa was watching Palpatine’s retreating back with a deeply thoughtful expression. The glint in her eyes, though, was almost predatory in its intensity. 

“Something on your mind,” Yan prompted her softly. 

Asa didn’t answer him at once. Only when Palpatine left the ballroom did she sway a little closer and ask, “Do you think he’s sold weapons to the Republic with the same pitch?” 

“Of course.” Yan shook his head. “Of course he’s sold weapons to the Republic; of course he assured them we’ve already bought those same weapons. Planning for the worst is such a reasonable thing to do. Some idiot’s hair-trigger is going to start this thing, and no one will be able to stop it.” 

Asa tapped something on her datapad and folded her arms, casually tilting the screen so only Yan could see the dramatic headlines splashed all over the display. 

“Going to?” Asa echoed mildly. 

“The attack on the embassy?” Yan sighed. “Maybe. That depends on the handling of the investigation and publicity, it’s really too soon to tell.” 

Still, Palpatine’s mention of the Azure Sector did not reassure him on that score. 

“It’s not just the embassy that concerns me,” Asa said. She tapped one of the headlines and handed him the pad. 

Yan stared at the words for a long moment, mostly in disbelief. 

“Onderon extremists blame Confederacy for embassy attack, call for a vote of no confidence in Senator Bonteri and seek to reinstate Onderon’s King?” 

He looked up. “They do realise Mina Bonteri has the full support of King Dendup, surely?” 

Asa simply arched a single, eloquent eyebrow at him. 

“I know, I know.” Yan grimaced, handing back the datapad. “We can’t lose Bonteri; Onderon has the best chance of lending us some legitimacy. We need to reach out to our friends in the Azure Sector, test the currents in their political leanings. Their response to this,” he gestured at the datapad, “will vastly influence how the Republic chooses to proceed with Onderon, and the Confederacy by extension.” 

* * *

DuCrion hadn’t said another word—just copied over the still image from Obi-Wan’s commset and vanished. That left Obi-Wan with the problem of this ‘Qui-Gon Jinn’ person, and the problem was that Obi-Wan didn’t know the name. It  _ sounded  _ familiar, like something on the surface of his thoughts floating just out of reach. That feeling of vague familiarity was a rare experience for Obi-Wan, and doubly frustrating for it. 

And yet, duCrion’s abrupt exit and his fierce, silencing glances worried Obi-Wan. DuCrion had been uncharacteristically perturbed, his reaction visceral— _ personal,  _ even. 

Obi-Wan sighed and pushed himself back from his workstation, rolling his head to stretch out the crick in his neck, and twisting to get at the more insidious one between his shoulder blades. Vaguely surprised at finding them there at all, Obi-Wan checked the chrono. 

He’d been poring over his commset for the last four hours without pause. “Yeah,” Obi-Wan muttered, “that’ll do it.” And he’d missed the midmeal discount window—that was mildly disappointing. He’d have to trek all the way down to the main commissary for a decent cup of caff, this time of day. 

Normally, Obi-Wan would have been a little irritated to take time away from his work. The mere discovery of the three-second appearance by one Qui-Gon Jinn did not prove he’d set the charges, after all. But combing through the bounty hunter pages had turned up little in the way of useful information, and Obi-Wan’s various search parameters hadn’t yielded much useful information from the city camm-feeds, either. Now was as good a time as any to take a walk and consider a different approach to the problem. 

Obi-Wan found himself strangely hesitant to check the Order’s records on Qui-Gon Jinn, and for the life of him he could not articulate why. Maybe it was something in duCrion’s response that gave him pause. DuCrion had barely whispered the name, as though even speaking it aloud could attract unwanted attention. 

That was not outside the realm of possibility, Obi-Wan knew. If the subject matter was sensitive enough. As much as he wanted to dismiss his misgivings as baseless paranoia, he was loath to override his instinct—especially when that instinct counselled him to proceed with caution. It would be better to speak to duCrion first, carefully tease out what was safe to question and what to leave alone. 

Pondering this and trying to decide on the best possible course of action in the meantime, Obi-Wan made a meandering path across the building, past the Room of Fountains—the Temple’s largest inner garden—and down a few levels to the main commissary. The view caught his eye, as he gave it a sideways glance. Obi-Wan blinked, and slowed to hover uncertainly before the glass. 

Coruscant bristled with skyscrapers, but its population realised very early on that they couldn’t live within entirely artificial enclosures. The planet’s history was one of environmental near-catastrophes and half-measures. Environmentalists and industrialists had jockeyed for the occasional massive legal victory, trying to overturn each other’s prior efforts; Coruscant had only reached a fragile balance within the last two centuries. 

But the Room of Fountains was the hidden crown jewel of Coruscant’s inner gardens, secreted away from the rest of the galaxy within the Temple walls. After the Atrium, it was the second most overt (and breathtakingly beautiful) relic of the Order’s past. The Room was large, tiered and transparisteel-walled for some twenty-six levels. It spanned the Temple’s entire inner courtyard. One could probably wander through it for years and years, and never learn all its secrets. 

In the short time Obi-Wan had worked in this building, he must have passed the Room some several dozen times. He had no idea when it had gone from quiet, dormant green to riotous and brilliant bloom. The golden sunlight was quite inviting. Obi-Wan suddenly felt  _ starved  _ for it. 

That made his decision on lunch much easier to make, too: a cup of caff, and something small—nerfstrip sandwich, maybe—to take with him into the garden. 

The first thing that struck Obi-Wan was the hush: the never-ending drone of Coruscant’s traffic was conspicuously absent, despite the impression of a wide-open sky. The Temple was a no-fly zone, but it only took stepping out onto one of the tower balconies to be reminded that the entire structure was exceptionally soundproofed. The Room was quieter than even the Temple halls. Here, there was only soft rustling and the chitter and whoop of the Room’s smaller denizens. It was like stepping into another world. 

On impulse, Obi-Wan turned left, down the path that curved around three silver-barked trees. They had grown and twined into each other in some peculiar dance. Strolling past them, Obi-Wan involuntarily found himself recalling certain fairy-stories from his childhood. He hadn’t actually planned on taking food from the garden, but the surreal sense of the place was certainly enough to dissuade any such nascent impulse. 

All around him there were names: tributes to honoured sages or memorials to the fallen. One might find a stepping stone engraved with the name of a Revered Master, or Distinguished Knight immortalised in a graceful relief. The Order held on to its history in this, at least to the ceremonial component: there were memorials to field operatives, too, set apart by their unworn white synthmarble. 

The path meandered down a gentle incline, curled around a pool in the dip between hills. A fountain burbled merrily in the middle of it, sparkling in the sunlight. The bench across from it was very inviting, gently shaded by a tree and mostly hidden from anyone who might approach. Obi-Wan wasn’t really hiding, but he also strongly preferred avoiding notice. 

Obi-Wan unwrapped his sandwich, careful to keep everything tidy, and bit into it, mind already racing ahead to pick apart the puzzle of Qui-Gon Jinn. 

Obi-Wan needed a holding pattern: something useful to do until he understood what he could touch and what he would have to avoid when it came to the Order’s files on duCrion or Jinn. The best approach was to continue looking for a mercenary with that specific skill set—for all that he wasn’t sure what that skill set should entail. That plan had a much better chance of succeeding if duCrion was willing to tell him give him details about that skill set, certainly. But if Qui-Gon Jinn had ever been targeted by the Order—if duCrion had ever been assigned to hunt him—Obi-Wan at least had a fair idea of what caliber of training he was looking for. 

That was a sobering thought. 

Siri Tachi and Bruck Chun were both childhood friends of his. Where he had chosen to enter the tech ranks, they’d gone straight for the operative class. Siri was frighteningly efficient, and Bruck was—well, Bruck. He’d taken to the operative training like a Selonian to water. But Obi-Wan was aware of what it entailed, thanks to them—and well aware that the program had been very different years ago. 

Obi-Wan knew of duCrion’s past status as a field operative, too. If Jinn’s very name had him spooked, like as not that made the man a truly formidable opponent. 

There was one other link to explore with the embassy bombing, Obi-Wan realised: the bomb maker. If the explosive device turned out to be distinctive in any way, if it could be traced back to its maker, there was a chance Obi-Wan would be able to find a handful of known associates. He should have thought of it earlier, really. 

Obi-Wan set aside his caff and pulled out his comm, programmed a reminder to contact a few old friends on Anaxes. Some of them would surely know. 

There was a smooth white stone in front of him, just before his feet. Obi-Wan stared at it, at the windswept and bruised blossoms that had fallen from the tree overhead, and wondered how the Room  _ worked.  _ The light traveled down some twenty-six stories, somehow, and yet here he was on the ground level and it was not dark. There was a breeze—where was it coming from? 

The memorial stone looked nearly silken—a recent installation, given a secluded and quiet place. Obi-Wan eyed it thoughtfully. Someone had earned that kind of respect. A field operative, most likely, who had died while on assignment. 

Obi-Wan sighed, and swirled his caff listlessly. Only members of the Order would ever see these memorials. It filled him with a dull melancholy, that realisation. Yes, all right, he understood that joining the Order meant effectively retreating from the rest of the world. This sort of work mostly drew people who had few ties to anchor them to the outside, anyway. But the thought of being forgotten even by the Order, life reduced to mission reports buried somewhere in an archival database… 

Obi-Wan shook off the grim thought, but not before he’d lost his appetite anyway, so he wrapped up what remained of his lunch. On a whim, he decided to look up the name on that memorial. He’d already toyed with the idea of looking up the old Masters and Knights and taking a crack at their philosophy texts—what difference would it make if he started with a contemporary instead? He rose and lightly dashed away the blossoms with his foot, haphazard. 

For a moment, Obi-Wan stared at the letters engraved into the synthmarble and thought nothing. He couldn’t quite believe the words he’d read:  _ Qui-Gon Jinn, Killed in Action, 10.12.5212.  _

Obi-Wan flinched back from the stone and swore. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short one for y'all this week :*


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Confederacy struggles to make ends meet, and turns to shadier dealings. 
> 
> The galaxy never sleeps.

Maul watched Nenánt Paumlo over a cup of tea that struck him as entirely too dainty to be allowed in a business office. Everything here was purpose-built. The teacup itself was just delicate frivolity. And yet, it fit neatly in the palm of his hand. 

“I will have to tell them something,” he prompted, soft voiced. 

Nenánt nodded gracefully. “Tell them that we will be pleased to enter into this arrangement. However, I do require certain… guarantees.” 

“What sort of guarantees?” Maul asked, generously refraining from rolling his eyes. The very audacity of her, to make demands of them—Dooku would be  _ so  _ pleased. 

“Tion seeks to be made a member of the Confederacy,” Paumlo declared. 

“To my knowledge,” Maul replied, “Tion seeks no such thing. Indeed, its Senators have been most subvocal on the topic.” 

“They’ll come around,” Nenánt said, waving an unconcerned hand. “We will supply you with ships. In turn, your government will supply Tion with the trading terms offered to Confederate members—I mean your taxes and import rates, and we will accept nothing less than this.” 

Maul hummed thoughtfully. “What you ask—is not impossible. But you must make some guarantees of your own. For one thing, we must have an assurance that Tion’s legislators will agree to this.” 

Paumlo’s face twisted. “You know they will. They’ve been talking about secession for the last five years.” 

“Talking, only. Tion is disconnected enough from the Republic that they do not rely on it for support. And right now, they are enjoying the perks of not being the Republic’s enemy. I would not be in such a hurry to give that up, in their position.” 

Paumlo’s smile turned decidedly horrible. “Oh, I have enough to persuade them with, I can assure you.”

Maul hid a tiny flash of disgust behind his teacup. “Very well,” he murmured. 

He had a fair idea of what sort of blackmail she was sitting on. He didn’t have to like it. 

Dooku would probably remind him again that they didn’t have much of a choice, and of course he would be entirely correct. Maul had heard it before:  _ We must reconcile ourselves with the fact that we will have to work with unsavory characters to survive,  _ Dooku had said. 

But Dooku would understand. Maul knew this sudden push to get a deal on Paumlo’s ships was a direct result of Dooku’s unwillingness to sign with Valdis Palpatine. 

There wasn’t any tea left for Maul to hide in. “I will have to contact my employers and discuss it with them. If we are quite finished here…?” 

Nenánt smiled at him, all teeth and prettiness. “Of course,” she said. “And if there is anything you need, anything the company can do to make you more…  _ comfortable,  _ ” she all but purred. Left the word hanging in the air, twisting like a light flag in a silken breeze. 

“No,” Maul said, politely but firmly, “thank you.” 

Dooku had bought his freedom, and his siblings’ freedom, many years ago. But that would never stop Maul’s mind venturing to the very worst of possibilities. At least, Dooku had never called it paranoia. Only “reasonable precaution”, he’d insisted. Maul, in turn, never once willingly let down his guard. 

“I thank you for your hospitality,” he assured Nenánt with a smooth, deep bow. 

The businesswoman smiled, apparently amused by his manners. Maybe she thought them overwrought. But Maul had always found that an overabundance of apparent respect served him better than a perceived lack of it.

“Truly,” Nenánt said, “a pleasure, working with the Confederacy’s representatives.” 

“The pleasure is mine.” 

* * *

Mina scrolled through the news highlights with growing distaste. The attack on the embassy was a complete mess. Nobody knew which way to point their accusatory fingers. Anaxian news reports speculated that Onderon extremists were to blame. Onderon reports mostly fabricated more and more outlandish motives for Republic-based extremist groups to have taken some action against a prominent Confederate world. 

Worse, the uncertainty had made it that much more difficult to do business with anybody—even with companies that had shifted their allegiance (or at least their taxes) to the Confederate side. 

A sudden trill of a comm call startled Mina. The commtag was a welcome one, as though summoned by her maudlin thoughts. She accepted the call and enabled the holographic channel. 

“It’s good to hear from you,” Bonteri said, fingers flying over the touchpad. “Line secure.” 

“Thank you.” Maul bowed slightly, ever polite. 

Mina had first met him as a shadow that hovered behind Dooku. Now she knew him as a formidable negotiator in his own right. He was also a fairly unknown individual who could conduct business with Republic-based entities as the Confederacy’s representative. 

As Dooku’s representative, really, but for the moment Mina was willing to view that as one and the same. 

“Do you have good news for us?” she asked. 

“Paumlo is willing to set aside a complement of ships for the Confederacy. They look good; not quite the Baktoid Federation model, but of similar design. Apparently they paid attention when we asked for something that could at least hold up against an enterprising pirate, if not outrun them.” 

“And by enterprising pirate, we mean…?”

Mina remembered those early negotiations. The specifications they’d discussed were very carefully couched in hypotheticals. If the Republic wanted to throttle the newly minted Confederacy, all they had to do was block their trade routes, seize their ships and strip them of cargo. Piracy was a concern, certainly. So was Republic-bankrolled privateering, and the promised Republic Navy, newly of Kuati build. 

Bonteri wanted just a touch more clarity. 

Maul graciously obliged, sending her a set of encrypted files. “A Kuati star cruiser.  _ Venator  _ class, pride of the shining new Republic armada.” 

Mina sat up straighter. “Shit. The Republic already has  _ Venators  _ ?”

“One or two are already patrolling strategic points—like Duro, for example. I don’t have all the location data, but I do know that one has been assigned to guard the Duro shipyards.” 

“That’s a lot of firepower,” Mina said mildly. “Are you seriously telling me that the hull on Paumlo’s cargo freighters is impenetrable?” 

“If the deflector shields fail for any reason, it’ll take a good twenty minutes of steady, localised torpedo fire to make so much as a dent in the hull. By then, either the hyperdrive or the auxiliaries should have the capacity to out-jump the situation.” 

“Stars, who does the Republic even have to crew this thing,” Bonteri muttered, staring at the mock-up of the  _ Venator  _ that she’d pulled up on her console display. 

“Hard to say. KDY certainly put a lot of effort into selling it.” 

Indeed they had. KDY, the Golden Nyss, and a handful of other ship-building companies had been pushing the idea of a Republic Navy for years. There was little public support for a military or navy, and Senators were never keen on voting for something that would mean raised taxes for their constituents. But that hadn’t stopped Ranulf Tarkin from running on the idea of “bringing back” Republic Military Force. 

Valorum won that election, and talk of a centralized military force had fizzled out. But with the tensions brewing across the galaxy, a great many drive yards had redoubled their efforts. 

The Confederacy was only thinking of ensuring trade and transport at the moment, but if the Republic was arming itself for war—that possibility made Bonteri deeply uneasy. 

Mina realised she was tapping at her desk, and forced her fingers to fall still. “Do you really think Tion’s ships can outrun a  _ Venator  _ ? Outlast it?” 

“If you want something fast, I advise contacting the Corellians. Your originally stated goal was to transport goods safely and in bulk,” Maul pointed out, “not to smuggle controlled substances. Paumlo can offer you stealth and unreasonable hull integrity. If you want  _ speed  _ and stealth, that’s an entirely different conversation.” 

“ _ Can  _ we have that conversation, though?” 

Maul pondered that a moment. “It’ll take much more negotiation on the price. Corellian engineers are, putting it mildly, completely insane. You’d be better off doing a quiet deal with Naboo, in all seriousness. They are new on the scene, but so far their performance indicates they are at least reliable.”

Bonteri rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “That is a wonderful idea, but for one little sticking point: is Naboo not a Republic-aligned world?” 

“They are.” Maul shrugged. “They are also on the very fringes of Republic space. The politics of Naboo is one thing, but their people are still quite in tune with the old Isolationist ways, and the very basis of their shipbuilding effort was provided to them by the Hutts. Ars Veruna was not a man of many scruples,” Maul clarified, and Bonteri realised her sabacc-face had fallen away like so much water. 

“Lovely,” she said. “Well, at least it’ll be more pleasant to deal with them than almost anyone else I have on my contact list. Speed might well become an issue, if this ever comes to open warfare. It’s the only advantage we could possibly have against an armada.” 

Maul thought for a moment. “Sienar is still an option, is it not?” 

“Same difficulty as Baktoid,” Mina replied. “They’re happy to overcharge us because they think we’ve nowhere else to turn.”

That got her a raised eyebrow—an expression so unmistakably like Yannis that it nearly broke Mina’s composure. 

“I can be quite persuasive,” Maul said. “What is the point, anyway, of having these companies ‘on your side’, if they don’t contribute to your defence and your continued survival as a new political power?” 

“Are you suggesting it is time to start making demands of our houseguests?” 

“I imagine our mutual friend would agree.” 

Dooku probably would agree, at that. Mina bit at the inside of her lip thoughtfully. “In the event of a war, there is no question that the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guild, and the TechnoUnion would be called upon to provide services at reduced rate.” 

“Yes. But now is a very good time to start making certain they take on a more active role in public affairs.” Maul glanced down at something in front of him, out of range of the holoprojection. “I’ll send you the names of a few contacts on Naboo.” 

“Thank you. What’s next on your itinerary?” 

“Paumlo is leaving for Centares in a few days. Her security detail is impeccable, but if our friend believes they require assistance, I can offer my services. Centares holds a number of points of interest for us.” 

“All right,” Mina said. “I could use your persuasiveness with our rebels, if you ever get a chance to make your way out here.”

“They are a weakness the Republic may choose to exploit. What is it that they want?” 

“They want Dendup back in power and me in the brig.” Mina smiled wryly at Maul’s baffled head tilt. “They seem to think I’m poisoning the King’s mind.”

“Behold, the power of the divine right of Kings,” Maul muttered. “This will require some thought.” 

“Of course. You have our latest intel?” 

“Yes, and thank you. I will contact you as agreed. Hunter Two out.” 

The hologram blinked out. Bonteri sighed and turned her attention to the data packets from Maul’s transmissions. The acquisitions from the  _ Azure StarCombine  _ shipyards certainly looked good, and the logistics Maul had ironed out with Paumlo were as near as a guarantee of safe delivery as they could hope for. 

For now, at least, they had a fighting chance to expand their trading routes and solidify alliances. 

* * *

“What’s this?”

Sate Pestage looked down at the datapad that had been unceremoniously dropped on the desk in front of him. 

Palpatine was in a mood, radiating a kind of manic energy that either meant everything was coming together or everything was coming apart. Sly said he’d met the head of the Confederacy at last night’s charity benefit and been “unfavourably impressed”. What that meant was anybody’s guess. 

The hair on the back of Pestage’s neck prickled. He was hyperaware of Valdis sweeping around his chair and back behind the massive Naboo mahogany desk. 

The image on the datapad was a freeze-frame of the Onderon Embassy’s in-house security recordings that would have been sent to the Order earlier that day. 

“Specialist Jinn,” Pestage answered. “Presumed killed in action two years ago on Malastare while attempting to capture or eliminate Aurra Sing. This was the best footage we could find for what we needed.”

“What precisely was the purpose of involving a dead Order operative in the Anaxes incident?” 

Valdis’s voice was soft, but Pestage knew better than to trust it. “It’s a distraction,” he said reasonably. “The Order will be too busy chasing a ghost to ever discover what really happened on Anaxes, and they certainly won’t be paying attention as they move to their new headquarters. Anaxes, in the meantime, will see that the Republic cannot truly offer it protection, and will support the formation of the Joint Intelligence Agency.” 

“Fine reasoning,” Valdis said. 

Pestage didn’t so much as breathe. Something about the words rang suspiciously incomplete. 

“But you chose an operative of the  _ Order,  _ and a Specialist, no less. That draws far more attention to the matter than we need, and has a risk of generating a narrative we cannot control.” 

Sate shifted uncomfortably. He considered himself one of Valdis’s closest and most trusted aides, but it would be inaccurate to suggest that he never felt like he was walking over a cold precipice while simply talking to the man. He’d found the best thing under the circumstances was to keep very still. 

“Pestage, I trust you with many things. I trust you to be able to undertake certain tasks without me telling you how to do them.” Palpatine eyed him pointedly. “I  _ trust  _ you will be able to turn this to our advantage.” 

Pestage bowed his head respectfully. “If the press starts looking for a story on Jinn, he is not to be affiliated to any major intelligence agency. He is a rogue actor, and the Order will disavow all knowledge of him.”

Valdis tilted his head thoughtfully. “And whatever the Order says, the public is sure to believe the opposite.” He tapped his desk gently. “Perhaps we can make use of this, after all.”

Pestage straightened in his seat. “We might suggest that the attack on the Embassy was the Order’s operation—” 

But Valdis was shaking his head. “No, no. But I think perhaps it’s time people found out a little more about the Order, hm? After all, what could be more frightening than a group of spies with the ability to create the ultimate assassin?” 

Pestage had no idea what to say to that. He couldn’t help but feel that he’d narrowly missed a much uglier personal outcome. 

Palpatine uttered a satisfied noise and nodded decisively. “Yes, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll just have to get the timing right.” He looked up. “I’m so sorry, Sate, I let myself get carried away for a moment. Please, tell me your impressions of that summit on Corulag? How are our voters feeling now, after your fireworks on Anaxes?”

Pestage dutifully launched into his report, which was well-received, for the mood he’d seen Valdis in at first. He waited until he was just past the doors of Palpatine’s office to let out a relieved breath. 

“Losing your touch, are you?” 

“Sly,” Pestage half-growled, trying to infuse his voice with a thread of warning. 

The girl shrugged, unrepentant. 

Palpatine encouraged a certain degree of competition among his closest aides, playing at an emperor who could afford to have favourites in his court. Pestage knew he was different, though. His favoured status was secure; after all, he’d known Palpatine longer than any of them, and was probably the one person who knew Valdis best in the world. 

The Umbaran girl, Sly Moore—she owed her life and sanity to Valdis, therefore she could not know him as an equal. Perhaps Pestage was no genius, but he did not remain with Valdis out of debt or fear. No: he was at Palpatine’s side by choice. 

“What happened with that Confederate puppet—the Count from Serenno?” 

Pestage gestured for Sly to walk with him, and she offered him an obliging head tilt, slowly gliding forward. 

“The Count proved more cautious than we had anticipated. Dooku is still interested in peaceful resolutions, though it appears he understands the Republic is not very willing to grant them the opportunity to negotiate. He is interested in luring powerful sectors and systems over to the Confederate side, but he is not giving up on the possibility that the Republic might recognise those systems as independent.”

“Stubborn man. Does he really believe in a diplomatic solution to all of this?” 

“In fact, he does. And it appears he has their Confederate Intelligence Agency working on finding useful contacts and information that will be the key to solid alliances. The major concentration of power, the stabilising voices of the Confederacy—they appear to be Dooku and Bonteri. They agree upon their goals for the Confederacy and advance them; the rest fall in behind.” 

“Interesting partnership,” Pestage agreed, thoughtful. “To weaken it might well mean to destroy any chance of Confederate unity.” 

“Possible, but unconfirmed. We do not wish to make that decision yet, not while the Confederacy is useful to us as a unified entity.” 

Pestage didn’t bother masking his irritation. “I hope you’re not lecturing me on the obvious, Sly.” 

“Just reminding you not to get in over your head,” Sly murmured, “given the fact that you’ve already chosen a target that forced Valdis to accelerate his plans.”

“Your concern for my well-being is noted.” 

“You have enjoyed the latitude that Valdis granted you in making decisions without submitting them for his approval. Lately I think you’ve been enjoying yourself too much.” 

“Is that an opinion Valdis shares?” 

Sly blinked at him. “Is it not enough that he permits such a thought to exist within his circle?” 

“You believe he values your opinion.” Pestage smirked. “See that you do not reach above your station, witch. The fall is a hard one. Believe me; I’ve seen it.”

He pushed past her, ignoring her childish, unconcerned shrug. 

“So long as we’re exchanging pleasantries,” her lilting voice called after him. 

Pestage ground his teeth. 

* * *

Obi-Wan’s contacts in Pols Anaxes were extremely helpful. It took a few hours for them to get access to the appropriate files, and some of them (mostly Reeft) were as thorough as Obi-Wan himself. By the time Obi-Wan got the information he’d asked for, it was late; most of the analysts had left for the day some two hours before. 

That was just as well. Obi-Wan preferred the relative privacy. 

Information on the bombmaker was thin, but the work was identifiable. Lott Kanniker worked with a wide range of clients, had no consistent associates, and was found dead in a hotel on the resort moon of Far Qasqi two days  _ before  _ his final masterpiece went off in an embassy on Anaxes. Local authorities had ruled it an accident. Really, no one seemed overly concerned about the death of one bombmaker. 

Obi-Wan scowled at his screen. 

_ All right,  _ he thought, and cross-referenced Kanniker’s known associates and clients with the mercenaries on his list. 

The list of bounty hunters willing to take a job on Anaxes was not very long. Slicing was a necessary skill in the business, but Anaxes called for above-average fluency. That left Obi-Wan with only a handful of names. 

That handful included one or two identities that could, conceivably, belong to Qui-Gon Jinn. At least, they belonged to someone with the kind of military training Obi-Wan hadn’t been able to track down or identify. 

It didn’t make a damn lick of sense—that was the frustrating point that kept snagging Obi-Wan’s single-minded progress. Jinn had been presumed dead for two years; there was a memorial devoted to him in the Temple garden, a not-insignificant one, placed with care in a quiet area and not hidden. That painted a picture that didn’t correspond with “traitor” or “rogue agent”. Resurfacing two years posthumously to bomb an embassy just didn’t fit. 

Obi-Wan glanced around the bullpen. At this late hour, it was mostly deserted. DuCrion hadn’t returned to his office all day—hadn’t been seen since his abrupt departure that morning. If Obi-Wan attempted to slice into the Temple’s system—particularly into sealed records—he risked getting caught. 

Not that, realistically, there was a very big chance of that; he was actually pretty damn good. On Anaxes, he’d learned to be invisible; in the Naval Academy, he learned how to camouflage his activity, hide in plain sight. He’d written applications that masked his activity from any monitoring processes, and he never went anywhere without them. Obi-Wan had even loaded them onto his account the first chance he got, and ran them constantly. 

And besides, with the Interface training, he was intimately acquainted with the ways the Order kept track of its assets. 

Still, Obi-Wan had told himself that he wouldn’t cause any trouble, wouldn’t draw any unnecessary attention to his humble person. Even the act of  _ thinking  _ about the best ways to slice into the Order’s systems felt like a betrayal of his word. 

_ So much for my promising career in espionage,  _ he thought grimly. 

There was a chance he’d figure out how to find Jinn, and Obi-Wan couldn’t ignore it. 

Jinn’s files were… impressive, was the first word that came to mind. The number of missions and the confirmed kill count were both incredibly high. Obi-Wan ignored the obituary; he went directly for training records and last recorded mission—and chose the mission file first. 

_ Objective: secure high-value target and escort into protective custody.  _

_ Available assets: 4 field operatives, standard class; 2 Specialists; 1 field operative trainee. Support team includes 4 Technicians, 2 Analysts.  _

The active team consisted of the four field operatives, headed by one of the Specialists. Backup consisted of one Specialist—Jinn—and the trainee, who turned out to be none other than Xanatos duCrion. 

Obi-Wan puzzled over the Specialist rank for a half-second. He supposed it was now defunct, because he definitely didn’t know of any specialised training available for the current Operative-class. Siri or Quinlan would have mentioned it. 

The file on the Malastare mission was quite thin, and painted a very bleak picture. It must have been a rare and catastrophic failure, for the Order to lose  _ an entire team.  _ Never mind a team of highly qualified field operatives, and their backup as well. The holostills were gruesome. 

_ All field operatives pronounced dead on arrival of Medical Evacuation team. Dr. Vokara Che determined that Specialist Ki-Adi Mundi had been unable to enter a biostatic trance, established cause of death as exsanguination and pulmonary insufficiency.  _

“Biostatic trance,” Obi-Wan muttered. He didn’t remember much of his xenobiology, but he was pretty sure nobody had ever mentioned that Cereans could stave off death for at least a little while. “Bet that comes in handy, out in the field.” 

_ Backup team engaged in pursuit of secondary target through Pixelito city streets and down-current over Seboli River. Trainee duCrion disengaged with pursuit, citing over-water travel limitations of chosen transport vehicle, and maneuvered to head off secondary target at optimal sniper location.  _

_ Given the order to terminate secondary target, Trainee duCrion reported lack of clean shot. Upon receiving confirmation of kill order, Trainee duCrion fired a single shot, hitting the fuel cells of secondary target’s vehicle. Secondary target and Specialist Jinn were within immediate blast radius.  _

_ Clean-up crews searched the river for remains. Remains of secondary target recovered and identified as assassin and mercenary Aurra Sing. Remains of Specialist Jinn not found; Specialist Jinn presumed killed in action.  _

“Well, fuck…” 

Now Obi-Wan understood the look on duCrion’s face. He’d fired the shot that killed Jinn, as a  _ trainee.  _ A quick glance at duCrion’s record told Obi-Wan that he’d been given six months’ mandatory leave, then immediately promoted to the status of fully qualified field operative and dispatched again. 

And the Malastare mission hadn’t even been his first time working with Jinn. 

Obi-Wan grimaced. He wondered how duCrion must have felt, seeing a dead man’s face on the security vid of a bombed-out embassy. Hells, Jinn might well have been a mentor to him, to some extent. 

Quietly edging away from that line of thought, Obi-Wan turned his attention to the training information provided for Specialist Qui-Gon Jinn. 

“Wait,  _ what?  _ ”

Obi-Wan stared at the file in disbelief. Most of it was redacted. Most of a file already protected by password, clearance level, and restricted access—was  _ redacted,  _ blacked out and unreadable. 

“What the fuck,” he whispered. 

“All right, you shit,” Obi-Wan muttered after a moment’s pause, and typed in an archive search for training programs active the year Qui-Gon Jinn entered the Order’s ranks, “let’s play.” 

The trouble with organisations like the Order (or the Anaxes Admiralty), as Obi-Wan had discovered over the years, was that they were forced to keep records of their activities and programs. They were accountable to the public for the way they spent the public’s money—or, at any rate, they were accountable to some representative body. 

In the Order's case, they were accountable to a specific Senate committee, for all that everyone pretended otherwise. As far as Obi-Wan was concerned, the Senate’s attitude was unsurprising and perfectly understandable. Nobody wanted to think about the sort of missions the Order was licensed to carry out. They just wanted to have someone to blame, if things ever went very wrong. 

For its own part, the Order pretended that it answered to no one, and smoothly disavowed any missions that went badly sideways. They still kept records: data collected and filed in triplicate, reports submitted to this superior officer or that filing clerk, backup copies and variants. 

Everything about the arrangement suited everyone perfectly—just until the end of every fiscal year. The Order submitted massive amounts of documentation and sent someone to testify before the committee upon request. The testimony was generally useless—but the documents, Obi-Wan had found, were quite accurate, if largely redacted. 

Part of the problem with the Order’s ‘bury them in paperwork’ approach was that it failed to take into account a particularly determined analyst. But then, Obi-Wan supposed, most Senators just weren’t that committed. 

It took some digging, and then it took some reading between the lines. After a few nebulous references to “the Program,” Obi-Wan had a better idea of what terms and time period to search for. 

Then he struck gold. 

Restricted access or not, psychological studies and health records were still fairly accessible for research purposes. There were no names to these files, but there were some identification codes. One matched Ki-Adi Mundi’s ident—Obi-Wan had seen it listed on Dr. Che’s Report of Terminal Findings after the Malastare mission. 

There was an entire family of similar ident codes for the Specialists. Their dossiers were collected under a single cover document: a review of “the Program” and its various achievements. The document read like something out of fiction, touting the development of supernormal abilities: telekinesis, precognition, heightened states of awareness—and “the ability to enter a biostatic trance,” Obi-Wan read, feeling his eyebrows climb up to his hairline. 

He’d assumed that was a quirk of Cerean biology, yet here a physician and scientist of the Order claimed that not one, not two, but nearly eight out of every ten Specialists had been able to achieve biostasis. The content of the individual case studies was even more bizarre. 

In the past, Obi-Wan might have laughed it off as a conspiracy theory, or someone burying a particularly tasteless joke in the dustiest depths of the Archives. Every single ruling power in the known galaxy had its ghost stories: supersoldiers and obscure, experimental training programs. Certainly, all legends held their grain of truth, but historically almost none of the programs had been all that effective. 

Obi-Wan was suddenly rather tempted to change his mind. An embassy in the middle of one of the most highly surveilled cities in the Core had been attacked by a dead man, and he’d barely been caught on a single vidstream. Obi-Wan hadn’t yet come across proof of the existence of ghosts, but right in front of him was proof enough of experimental training programs. He would be foolish to ignore it. 

By the time Obi-Wan glanced up from his reading and at the chrono, it was already third hour. There was no possible way he could read all of this in one sitting, and he didn’t want to risk a file transfer or download— _ that  _ would be harder to mask than just snooping around in the archives. 

Obi-Wan did have an app that could scan through the document and create a much smaller text file—one of his own making, which he’d affectionately named Spyder. It was a marvelous aid for snooping, and he’d used it more than once. 

Obi-Wan sighed and stretched. At least he could easily claim he’d been preparing for the Neural Interface training, if anyone thought to ask him why he’d stayed so late into the night. 

Obi-Wan would have thought by now that he had done enough sneaking through corridors under the “Great and Watchful Eye of Authority”, as his fellow slicers in the Anaxian underground had put it, to have gotten over the queasy, nervous thrill of it. Instead, he discovered that he’d been missing the sensation, the heady feeling of touch-and-go. The Temple was deserted but for a staff of cleaning and guard droids. 

“Late night?” one of them asked Obi-Wan as he passed, sympathetic. 

And Obi-Wan answered, smooth as butter: “A bit.” 

“S’not good for you, working yourself like that.” 

He grinned, almost manically cheerful—which went right along with the guise of a sleep-deprived, overcaffeinated analyst. “Taking an interest in the care and feeding of wayward organics?”

The droid uttered a noise that sounded uncannily like a snort. “Not like you organics can take care of yourselves.” 

That surprised a laugh out of him. “Very true. What should I call you?” 

“GR-36-091, but Greg will do just fine.” 

“All right then, Greg, you have a good night!” 

Obi-Wan stepped out onto the Jenth-four landing pad. He sucked in a breath of ice-cold, rarefied air, and held it for a slow count of eight. Held it, released it slowly, and took another breath, and over and over again until his heartbeat slowed. 

His comm chimed thinly in his pocket, and Obi-Wan automatically reached for it. 

_ [Biotraces found at scene. Report will be forwarded to Order by 0500 hours. —Yage K.] _

Obi-Wan pursed his lips together and pocketed the comm. Either the biotraces would match the Order’s records on Jinn, or they’d point to someone completely different. He didn’t want to place any bets on this, but one thing was clear: by 0500 he would know whether his little venture into the Archives was a largely pointless exercise or a useful bit of data-mining. 

Suddenly there didn’t seem to be much point in going home for the night. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "How to track a ghost" and other interesting questions

The biotraces were confirmed to be Jinn’s by 0542 hours. 

By then Obi-Wan had emerged from the garden, bleary and discombobulated. He’d napped there for some two hours instead of going home. Actually, Obi-Wan had fallen asleep while engrossed in his pilfered reading material—facefirst in a datapad—but no one needed to know about any of that. 

The Temple seemed to have experienced a complete yet quiet upheaval those two hours. the Order didn’t really separate the operative-class trainees from the analyst-class, but the two streams didn't officially share any blocks on their schedule, either. The whole of the trainee pool was in an uproar; the operative-class mingled freely with the techs, gleefully sharing all sorts of versions of Jinn’s legendary exploits. They’d unofficially taken the position of _experts_ on Qui-Gon Jinn, but Obi-Wan privately noted that some of the tales they told had only a passing resemblance to what he’d seen in the (classified) reports. 

He wondered if any part of those reports would be made public in the manhunt that would surely follow. And how public: would the Senate demand the release of classified information from the Order? Or would they simply demand a cover story and not press beyond that? 

The extended absence of one Executive Officer of the Tech Branch Xanatos duCrion promised nothing quite so simple. 

When duCrion finally appeared, he looked as though he hadn’t slept at all. Obi-Wan watched him briskly cut across the crowded bullpen, shoulders hunched and glare focused somewhere not in this plane. DuCrion’s eyes fairly burned, either in anger or bitterness. Wherever he’d been, whatever he’d been doing for the last few hours, something hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped. 

Operative- and analyst-class alike moved aside to let the ranking executive pass, and their voices dropped to an intrigued or discomfited murmur. Some nervously edged towards the exit, as though worried they’d earned some sort of reprimand for abandoning their assigned post—though, as far as Obi-Wan had seen, not a single person in the Temple remained at their workplace or their commset. The news of a dead operative returned, and involved in an aggressive action at that, was far too tantalising a piece of information. 

DuCrion reached his office door and threw a quick, pointed glance over his shoulder. The mutterings that had just begun to swell instantly died down again like a punctured bubble. 

Obi-Wan looked down at his screen again. 

_Keep your head down. Don’t attract attention._

He’d been reviewing the Pols Anaxes footage again, plumbing it for hints of tampering. Even the updated reports from Anaxes mentioned nothing about tampering. Obi-Wan’s contacts verified the fact that the official records committed to the archives also held no mention of tampering, but something wasn’t right, and he still couldn’t put a finger on exactly what. 

“Ten says I find him before you do,” a familiar voice said over Obi-Wan’s shoulder. 

“Mhm, you do that,” Obi-Wan murmured, scrolling through his feed, “only ten’s a little cheap, and you still owe me lunch from last time.” 

Bruck spread himself over the back of Obi-Wan’s chair with a laugh. “What’s that you’ve got there, spaceport cams on Anaxes?” 

Obi-Wan drove a shoulder backwards, none too gently. “Get your own, Bruck.” 

“Come on, Obi, I thought you were the clever one in our year at the Academy,” Bruck wheedled, unruffled and not even dislodged. “He’s a professional, you won’t catch him on cams.” 

“Uh-huh,” said Obi-Wan, eyes firmly on his screen, “bugger off, I’m busy.”

“Pff, you’re no fun.” Bruck sighed loudly in his ear—Obi-Wan couldn’t help but flinch a little—but mercifully did take his weight off the back of the chair. 

“And buy me lunch,” Obi-Wan called after him. Bruck made a rude noise, then spoiled the effect with ringing laughter, not that Obi-Wan was paying attention. It did occur to him, belatedly, that perhaps he should’ve asked Bruck whether being a “professional” meant Jinn could tamper with cameras without using a device. 

In that moment, duCrion re-emerged. 

“Anyone of you who isn’t one of mine, get off my floor.” His voice was cool and level, but it carried exactly as intended, its authority uncontested. The operatives may as well have evaporated. 

_Or maybe they’ve just figured out how to make themselves invisible,_ Obi-Wan considered. 

A week ago that might’ve been a lighthearted quip. He didn’t laugh. As he’d discovered only hours before, supernormal ability wasn’t far enough from reality for such idle suppositions to even hint at funny anymore. 

“Now that I have your undivided attention,” duCrion said. “Allow me to illuminate the situation: two years ago on a mission to Malastare, Qui-Gon Jinn was presumed killed in action. Two days ago, Jinn resurfaced in connection with the attack on the Onderon Embassy of Pols Anaxes. 

“We have a task before us, and it is not a simple one. You are now tracking one of the best operatives the Order has ever trained. Jinn has managed to evade detection for the last two years, which is impressive in itself. His motives are unknown; his present employer, also. We do not know who is calling the shots. 

“The people upstairs have chosen to view the attack on the embassy as the action of a rogue operative. It is up to the Order to apprehend Qui-Gon Jinn. It is _your_ task to find him. He will not make it easy. From this moment forward, you have no other assignment. Go to work.” 

DuCrion turned his attention to a smaller, more contained group of people. “Oracles, you’re with me. We have a matter of some delicacy to discuss.”

The Oracle group, consisting of a handful of beings, rose and ambled towards duCrion’s office, with the executive heading up the rear, eyeing the bullpen. Watching the techs get to work, Obi-Wan supposed. 

Obi-Wan caught a glimpse of a fading notification banner at the lower right corner of his screen. The techs’ info-board had a new posting. It contained a series of files with background on their new target. 

Only one problem: at a glance, Obi-Wan realised yet again that the files were heavily edited. Not even redacted—most of the information was just outright missing. They’d done a good job of it, too. If he hadn’t sliced into the system last night he would never have known it. 

Obi-Wan involuntarily quirked an eyebrow, just a touch. Did the Order not _want_ them to know anything about Jinn? _He’s a professional,_ Bruck had said. _You won’t catch him on cams._ Without the knowledge of Jinn’s training or even the better part of his mission record, they had nothing to build a profile from. Not that Obi-Wan expected Jinn’s profile to come easily, but even trained operatives tended to gravitate to the familiar. 

How were they supposed to track a ghost? They didn’t even know half of the man’s extraordinary skills. 

Or perhaps it was that the Order didn’t want anyone to know about the Program. Of course: no one could know that the Order trained (had trained?) super-soldiers and carried out the sort of covert operations that the Republic Senate publicly denounced. 

Obi-Wan carefully schooled his expression to studied boredom. _Keep your head down. Don’t attract attention._ He could almost feel duCrion’s gaze sweeping the bullpen, searching for anything out of the ordinary. 

It occurred to him that the entire team was working with their hands tied behind their backs. Maybe they would get lucky, but Jinn didn’t seem to be the type to leave anything up to luck. 

Obi-Wan had the feeling he would be attracting attention pretty damn soon, whether he liked it or not. Of all of them, he had the best bet of finding their rogue operative and bringing him home. 

* * *

The commissary was unusually full of chatter and bustle. It seemed that nothing brought together a towerful of spies like a ghost story could. 

Some people, by contrast, were quite somber. Obi-Wan found himself standing next to a pensive looking woman in line for the soups. 

He didn’t recognise her at first. She looked familiar, but Obi-Wan couldn’t pin down where he might have seen her. Then she turned around and reached over his tray for a well-toasted flatbread, and it clicked. 

“Nim Vadia?” 

She looked up sharply. “Do I know you?” 

“Not at all,” Obi-Wan smiled, a little taken aback by the abrupt response but hiding it well (he thought). “I’m one of the new analysts. But you’re with the Oracle group, aren’t you?” 

Nim’s expression went a little funny. “Right. Yes, I am. I hope the tech classes aren’t telling myths about how cool we Oracles are, that would be embarrassing.” 

Obi-Wan had the sense he’d been reclassified to ‘non-threatening’ status, and gamely went along with it. “But why embarrassing?” 

Nim shrugged. “Because the job never lives up to the hype?” 

“No, see, I asked first,” he insisted, grinning. That won him a snort. “And I can tell you don’t believe that.” 

“Okay, okay—” Nim waved him along and settled down across from him at one of the smaller, secluded tables. “People always want to know about the future, so we’re doing all this predictive calculation, trying to figure out how to _prevent_ things from happening. You can’t really prevent a revolution or an assassination, but you sure can try.” 

“That’s why they call you Oracles, isn’t it? Because you predict the future?”

“Honestly, I think it started as a bad joke. Nobody could believe that we’d really be able to get anything right.” Nim shrugged. “Mostly, though, we’re just glorified detectives hunting for motives and backed up by numbers. It’s just a study of patterns, more than anything else.” 

Obi-Wan figured it was as good a time as any to move up from the non-threatening, starry-eyed hero worship of a new joiner. “I’d hazard a guess and say no one could’ve predicted Onderon.” 

Nim glanced up at him, curious. Her voice dropped a little lower still. “Depends. This isn’t technically a secret, though it hasn’t been made public: the Order, Judicial, and CSF are all being thrown into one coalition soon, and this coalition will be privately funded. It’s filtering down through the ranks right now—the higher-ups know, and they’re putting in a last ditch effort to fight it, but of course it’s all been decided already.” 

“You’re saying this could be related.” 

“Anaxes wasn’t going to back the coalition. Their argument was echoed by at least fifteen other systems: their citizens’ right to privacy would be severely limited, if not blown right out of orbit.” 

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow, this time definitely surprised. “And here I thought it might have something to do with Onderon’s role in the Azure System’s trade.” 

“It’s an angle we’ve explored,” Nim agreed. “Azure has the potential to simply declare themselves independent, the way Corellia did and the way Onderon was attempting to do. See, Corellia was smart, they wrote it into their charter that they could—what was it?” 

“Take a period of contemplation of some thirty years?” 

“ _That_ was it, yes. Onderon hadn’t written that into their original charter, so the vote was meant to permit them to amend seven-hundred-year-old law. Either someone doesn’t want the Republic to allow them to set the precedent, or someone wants Azure to back out as well. It would certainly weaken the Republic to lose access to their only serious Naval force.” 

“Which is the more likely?” Obi-Wan asked slyly. 

“Can’t say.” Nim frowned at her soup. “Did they put ginger in this? It’s very good.” 

There was another upswell in the commissary chatter. Obi-Wan looked up briefly, decided that the dessert bar was causing all the excitement but otherwise nothing else had changed, and turned his attention back to Nim. 

“What can you tell me about Jinn?” 

The woman froze. “Don’t know what you mean.” 

“Yes you do. He preferred working with you over most other techs. The two of you had a rapport.” 

Nim raised her head and locked eyes with him, jaw tight. “Yeah, we had a rapport,” she said quietly. “Jinn preferred working with competent people who would watch his back. He didn’t suffer fools. He wasn’t a defector, and he’d sooner die than break.” 

_He certainly inspired loyalty,_ Obi-Wan couldn’t help thinking. “Didn’t he die on Malastare?” 

“As far as anyone knew.” 

Nim dropped her flatbread and brushed her hands over her bowl, lips pressed tight in a grim expression. Obi-Wan suspected it was an act—even now, two years later, she was quite shaken. 

“They were out of satellite range when it happened, I lost track of them. All the Specialists had a unique implanted tracker, but if it was damaged in the blast…” She swallowed thickly and pushed aside her tray. “I—we couldn’t get a signal.”

The files contained holo-images of Aurra Sing’s remains. Obi-Wan didn’t particularly want to think about it either. “What’s the range on those trackers?” he asked instead. 

“Global and low-orbit would cover it,” Nim said. 

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow, surprised. Most trackers barely covered a city. “Powerful model.” 

“Oh, yeah. It was this whole complicated deal, too—Specialists had a model that monitored life-signs as well as location, and it was need-to-know access only. I didn’t even know the code. We needed someone back on Coruscant to patch in to try and find it, but it was hours before they could even connect.” She was twisting her hands together, rubbing at the space between thumb and forefinger. “Not that anyone thought to look until they found what was left of Sing, though. By then, nobody thought he’d survived, anyway.” 

When Nim looked up again, her eyes were red, though not tear-filled. She looked defiant. “I don’t know what kind of report Internal expects you to file, but I do know that everyone who’s ever worked with Jinn will say the same thing: he wouldn’t turn.” She added, after a moment, “Not willingly, at any rate.” 

Obi-Wan nodded, quietly bewildered that she’d decided an Internal Affairs persona might be questioning her after all this time. He couldn’t tell if people in the Temple were paranoid or just shaken. 

“Then that is what my report will reflect,” he said, opting to play to her expectations. Hopefully she would find that reassuring. 

Nim nodded as if she had, then hesitated. “Can I go now?” 

“Of course. Thank you for your time.”

 _Not willingly turned,_ Obi-Wan reflected, could mean a variety of things. For one, deep in the psychological profiles of various candidates for the Specialist program, he’d found interesting notes and marginalia that indicated a strong possibility of a mental break. Those candidates were declared unsuited for the program and sidelined, on rare occasions dismissed. 

Jinn’s training file had mostly been clear of those. What the commentary reflected was a tendency towards melancholy and self-imposed isolation, depression, and Obi-Wan’s skin fairly crawled at how meticulously personal those notes were. 

Everything he came across about this man all but shouted at him that Jinn was not a traitor. Everything, that is, besides the very convincing record of the man’s death. 

Still, nobody was ever found. And, as Nim had just indicated, no one had bothered to look for the tracking signal for at least three hours after the ill-fated shot. 

_If I were a spy and I decided, for whatever reason, to go on the run, the_ first _thing I would do is cut that tracker out,_ Obi-Wan thought. It probably wasn’t an option for his search. But it couldn’t hurt to check the last known location on record. 

* * *

Specialist sensors were another thing Obi-Wan wasn’t supposed to know about. The R&D files were most illuminating, however. 

Specialists’ sensors monitored their geolocation and lifesigns, automatically connected to satellites and holonet relays with an encrypted signal that was batted around until it reached the nearest headquarters with the matching key. Station C, for example—that was Corellia—covered all of the Corellian Sector systems, as well as some of the neighbouring sectors. 

And the encryption was quite good. In this, at least, someone had done their job exceptionally well. 

There was also some chatter buried in the old logs from engineering forums—R&D personnel complaining about Specialists always finding ways to foil the signal somehow. Apparently R&D had trouble keeping up. 

Obi-Wan grinned. 

Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could back-track through logs on Malastare’s holonet providers’ servers, identify the signal, and see if he could pick up another sign of it in neighbouring sectors. 

He found… something. The signal cut out on Malastare about the recorded time of Jinn’s “death”. It resurfaced—no lifesigns, geolocation only; the signal was picked up by one of the Order’s backup server banks, first on Rhen Var, then Ossus. 

Not long afterwards it made its way back to the Mandalorian Sector, on Concord Dawn. Obi-Wan wasn’t entirely sure about the geolocation there, but he’d narrowed it down to a spaceport, and then to a shop, and then back to the spaceport again. Obi-Wan managed to find surveillance of both locations at all the corresponding times, and the only thing he discovered was a droid following along behind a Weequay, who then sold off the droid to another pilot. 

Obi-Wan felt his eyebrows creep up involuntarily. “Clever,” he muttered. If Jinn somehow got the sensor out and stowed it on a droid, the sensor was completely useless now. 

Not that he’d expected anything less from a Specialist. 

In the end, Obi-Wan decided that the only reason he hadn’t already found Jinn was simply that he’d been sloppy. He’d been looking at jobs that matched a certain profile; he should have gone straight to the Guild registry. 

There was one major Bounty Hunters’ Guild, but it wasn’t enough to hold an entire galaxy together. There were nearly-independent branches in every region, at least twenty easily recognisable Houses dotting the Outer Rim. Obi-Wan had been looking at the postings on the Guild’s main boards; he should’ve started with a smaller, localized House of the Guild and combed through those. 

There were even mercenary guilds, though Obi-Wan thought mercenary work was an unlikely choice for a former Specialist—a little too close to what Jinn had been doing for the Order, a little too obvious. Mercenary guilds were smaller, lesser-known, but required just as much paperwork. Obi-Wan considered this to be something of a boon. After all, how many tall (1.93 Standard meters) Humanoid bounty hunters with past military training could there be? 

Obi-Wan hesitated before running that particular search. _Mandalorians,_ he thought to himself, and sighed. The armour would add some uncertainty to the height in holo-image analysis, not to mention little opportunity for facial recognition if they never removed their helmet. 

He ran the search anyway. There were other ways of narrowing things down. 

The executives in charge of editing (and sanitizing) Jinn’s file had released a partial list of locations he’d been assigned as an operative—though, of course, no mission details. Obi-Wan didn’t even need to cross-reference their dates and locations against events: Jinn had always been dispatched to troubled areas. These were the right places to disappear into, Obi-Wan thought. Restless and messy, places where people lost their livelihood so often that a person without an ident card was hardly a surprise. 

Yet, somehow, Obi-Wan didn’t think Jinn was the sort to vanish. He didn’t even need the bombing on Anaxes to convince him of that. No one with a mission record like Jinn’s could ever just _settle down_ somewhere. The man had seen too much action for peace to really stick. 

But if Jinn had taken up bounty hunting, Obi-Wan figured he would likely gravitate to those old assignments—if only because he knew the lay of the land and the politics. There was hiding, and then there was good sense. 

So that was how Obi-Wan found him, in the end, with reasonable certainty and a good timeframe for interception. 

His team members were somewhat dubious. 

“He’s an accountant,” Kit protested. “He’s sixty years old and he’s tall and on a pension.” 

“And definitely not a bounty hunter, I would imagine,” Barris pointed out. 

Kit shrugged. “Hey, it’s a stressful job.” 

Adi Gallia, a member of the Oracle group there to deliver their collective report, laughed. “Gods—whatever parallel universe you live in, Kit, I want to see it someday.” 

DuCrion swept in, seemingly freezing the mirth right out of the glass-and-steel office. “I trust none of you slept? That’s good. What have we got?”

Adi gave her report first, since everyone trusted the Oracle group to know what they were doing. Obi-Wan did his best to blend in with the furniture. It wasn’t that he thought he was wrong, precisely, but if the team’s reaction was anything to go by, he wasn’t certain he wanted to hear what duCrion would say. 

He understood how his report looked. It was, at best, a series of conjectures held together by tenuous, near-transparent threads. The conjectures made all the more sense in context—Obi-Wan knew all the mission details, after all. Even then, it could’ve been a series of coincidences for Jessik’s name to appear as often as Jinn’s and in such similar context. Perhaps Jessik was a particularly discerning fellow, one who had an eye for minor cogs of political wheeling and dealing. He was an accountant, after all. 

But things could be much worse for Obi-Wan, particularly if someone were to notice he was acting with information he wasn’t supposed to have. If Kit and Barriss were regarding his ideas with skepticism… 

DuCrion didn’t let him hide. “So what have you got for us, Kenobi? Do not disappoint me,” he added ominously. 

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if it was a tease. The delivery was quite stone-faced. He cleared his throat. 

“Aeron Jessik. Asmeru native, fifty-two years of age, approximately corresponding to Jinn’s physical description.” 

The profile of one Aeron Jessik appeared on the holoprojector in the middle of the table. 

Xanatos lofted one fine eyebrow. “Oh? I had no idea accountants were so dangerous these days.” 

“That’s exactly it,” Obi-Wan said. “What’s a fifty-year-old accountant from Asmeru doing getting a bounty hunter’s license on Outland Station?”

Aeron Djessik was, no doubt, quite a real person—or had been, once. Obi-Wan managed to piece together a profile from Asmeru’s records, with sources ranging from public service databases to power, communication, and entertainment companies. There was no record of a death, but at some point he’d stopped using the power supply… and then he’d stopped paying for anything altogether. 

Jessik resurfaced about a year and a half ago, presumably looking to make a living offworld. He’d registered for a bounty hunter license on Outland Station. That alone was a shrewd move: waystations filled the required blank for permanent residence, which no one ever bothered to confirm. Even better, Outland Station had very loose standards for identification—no holo-image necessary—and the waystation’s Guild office certainly hadn’t bothered to verify Djessik’s identity against any existing Asmeru records. The verification procedure was mostly a Core-world standard, anyway. 

Djessik tended to take contracts on the Mid or Outer Rim; he was efficient, and his reputation was formidable. There were barely any vid or image-captures of the man, but even in the fuzziest and barest snatches the man’s height and build corresponded with Jinn’s physical description. 

Obi-Wan hesitated only slightly before projecting a map with all of Jinn’s (disclosed) mission assignments, set against all of Jessik’s accepted contracts. 

DuCrion stared at it with a strange expression. “All right,” he said quietly. “That’s a compelling case, Kenobi. Oracle, see if you agree with Kenobi’s report.” 

“Jessik has a contract. On Centares,” Obi-Wan added, pulling up the relevant posting. 

Adi pressed her lips together as she scanned the general information. “We should at the very least see what that’s about. The target is one of the more influential corporate connections the Confederacy has in the Azure Sector. We’ve been watching the possibilities there, especially.” 

“All right,” duCrion said. “Give me an analysis of the situation, we’ll put together a team. You’re all dismissed—except Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan rubbed the bridge of his nose, but said nothing. It was too much to hope that he hadn’t somehow given himself away, used information that wasn’t in the approved file to track Jinn down. He wondered what it might have been, he’d been so careful… 

Xanatos was watching him intently. Obi-Wan thought he looked… impressed, if that was even possible. 

“Don’t look so modest, Kenobi,” duCrion said, strangely somber. “You’ve just tracked one of the most challenging targets the Order has ever known. We used to run it as a training exercise—‘Find Jinn’.” Xanatos smiled, a slight, wry, and reminiscent thing. “Most of our candidates complained about being made to track a ghost. Qui-Gon enjoyed scaring the shit out of them, afterwards.” 

The memory was almost fond. It struck Obi-Wan suddenly that he’d almost never seen duCrion smile, or indeed experience any emotion, wear any expression other than ‘professionally flat’ or ‘calculating’. What sort of a man was Qui-Gon Jinn, to be so warmly remembered by someone so… self-contained? 

And what had changed? 

Xanatos abruptly sobered. “You’ll have to go with them.” 

“Beg pardon?” 

“You’re the only one here who’s managed to keep up with his movements.” DuCrion shrugged. “Not the only reason, of course. You may have heard, we’re moving offices to a new location. The logistics are a pure nightmare. I don’t have enough people to send, and I need to send someone with your technical level. Also—” here Xanatos rose and honed in on a part of Obi-Wan’s projected galaxy map “—you may notice, the Order isn’t precisely welcome in the Tion Hegemony. They haven’t declared themselves for the Confederacy just yet, but that doesn’t mean we can safely show our faces there. So. You’ll be going as a civilian, Mr. Kenobi. I’m sure you’ll be far more convincing than just about anyone else there.” 

Obi-Wan allowed himself one liberty: he shot duCrion a dirty look. Xanatos only snorted at it. “What is the expectation for this mission?” 

At that, duCrion answered with a pained expression. “Your primary goal is to avoid the attention of any Centarian authority. You will most likely be required to observe, babysit Jessik’s target. It’s up to the Oracle group and those upstairs to decide whether we should try to save them; aside from bringing in Jinn—if Jessik is, in fact, Jinn—our policy is non-interference. I wish I could tell you more. _Try_ not to lose him? But, believe me: while the people upstairs expect us to bring in Jinn dead or alive, I prefer to set realistic expectations for my people. I expect the responsible thing here would be to tell you all to just stay alive.” 

Obi-Wan turned that over in his mind. “You think Jinn won’t be happy to see us?” 

“Not likely.” DuCrion shrugged. “But then, what do I know. The Jinn I knew would never have turned in the first place.” 

Obi-Wan nodded. He was still thinking about it as he put together his things and moved to the door. Just as he was about to leave, though, he paused. “You and others have said Jinn wouldn't turn. Is there any situation in which he might have gone rogue? Or chosen to leave the Order?” 

Xanatos turned very grim at that. “I don’t know. But, I suppose, getting shot at and left for dead by his junior partner might just about cover it.” 

Obi-Wan gave that a moment’s consideration. “Sounds more like a cause for retirement.” 

The quip earned him another snort and faint hint of a smile. “Yes, maybe the bounty hunting is supplementary income, after all.” But duCrion didn’t seem convinced. “Always thought he might prefer to take a job as a bodyguard.” 

It didn’t occur to Obi-Wan for another hour or so to wonder why he hadn’t looked for any bodyguarding posts to begin with. If Jessik really was their rogue Specialist, it was no less than an incredible stroke of luck that Obi-Wan had been able to track him at all. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Centares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dunno about y’all but this is definitely the chapter _I’ve_ been waiting for. I wrote the fic for this.

There were planets, systems, and entire sectors where the Order wasn’t welcome since the Secession Crisis and the start of the Cold War, but it still had various shell companies and fronts all over the galaxy—export companies, banks, even data centers. The Centares front was a nondescript office that housed a travel agency, of all things. 

Then again, Centares had some lovely attractions. The agency catered to offworlders, ostensibly, and promised a personalized approach to travel planning. It wasn’t exactly well-known, styling itself after a mom-and-pop shop run by a pair of locals who weren’t too comfortable with media outreach. Obi-Wan was the tech support consultant they’d brought in to upgrade their booking system. 

Obi-Wan and a few of the other team members traveled separately. He was among the first to arrive, 0700 hours local time. The morning was humid and already sun-drenched—beautiful, but thick as oil paints. The “travel agency” had booked rooms for everyone in a nearby inn. Residents Lett and Esna played the part of a welcoming elderly couple to the hilt. 

Obi-Wan and a few of the other team members traveled separately. He was among the first to arrive, 0700 hours local time. The morning was humid and already sun-drenched—beautiful, but thick as oil paints. The “travel agency” had booked rooms for everyone in a nearby inn. 

Setting up a base of operations quickly turned into an exercise in frustration, however: half of the requisitioned tech was nowhere to be found, and it wasn’t as though the team had requested all that much. Obi-Wan and the rest of the support team spent two hours playing comm-tag with suppliers and shipping companies. The operatives didn’t seem particularly surprised or worried. 

“It’s the Rim, kid,” one of them—J’naani, Obi-Wan thought—said with a faint shrug. “Everything moves slow as taffy—and in this heat, too.” 

Centares was Mid-Rim, but it was the last Mid-Rim world on the Perlemian, so Obi-Wan supposed the Nikto had a point. 

Centares was also nearly a keystone member of the Tion Hegemony. From what Obi-Wan understood of the situation, any day now all member worlds of the Tion Cluster would call a forum and cast a vote on whether to join the Confederacy or remain neutral. In practice, however, the Tion Cluster had already all but declared its alignment with the Confederacy within the last Standard year. 

Centares was one of the most influential worlds in the sector. This could easily be the worst time for the Republic to get caught poking their fingers into the business of private, upstanding Tioni citizens. Obi-Wan didn’t feel like sticking around and waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

And if “any day now” was too arbitrary a deadline, there was a much more immediate one: Jessik’s contract. They were lucky, too, that the contract specified time and place very clearly—a hit, and judging by the demands of the person who’d put it out, it was meant to send a message. The moment Jessik finished, he’d be in the wind again. They had three days to identify him, determine whether Jessik and Jinn were one and the same or not. 

“Well, we could do it the old-fashioned way,” J’naani offered. 

“The old-fashioned way” meant audio-comms, no vidstreams, no access to internal cams, and absolutely no way to confirm the team’s status if anything went wrong. Obi-Wan got the distinct impression of professionally concealed resentment from the operatives—which wasn’t unexpected. Operatives never liked what they’d been issued, he knew, often brought the equipment back in tatters (if at all), and complained that it wasn’t up to the normal wear and tear of their missions. Eyeing the pieces the support team had eventually managed to pull together, Obi-Wan couldn’t disagree. 

He’d drawn the short straw, and ended up with the job of providing equipment for the operatives. Probably a rite of passage for the “new guy”, Obi-Wan suspected. Something about being able to stand one’s ground in the face of scarred, serious field operatives—people trained to kill. Whatever Obi-Wan’s successes in the realm of tracking digital footprints, it was only his third ten on the job. His official title was still Analyst, First-Degree—an entry-level office—which certainly didn’t help. 

Obi-Wan ignored the slightly patronising tone. 

“Can’t help you if I’m blind,” Obi-Wan muttered absently, glaring at the layout of the opera house and the surrounding buildings. “If you were tracking a high-profile target at the opera with a view to kill or kidnap, what would you do?” 

The Nikto shrugged. “Grab them outside or lure them out during the intermission. But it’s not me we’re planning for.” 

Obi-Wan shrugged. “No, but the basics are still the best. If we have to do this blind, I need to see the layouts in my sleep, so walk me through it. Without entering the opera house, where would you case the building? I see two good sniper nests—here, and here,” he pointed out two neighbouring buildings with a view of the street and into the opera house. 

The Nikto gave him an exaggerated (and for his species, unnecessary) blink. “Former military?” he asked, with grudging respect. 

“Navy.” 

“Ah… Well,” J’naani sniffed, “nobody’s perfect.” 

Obi-Wan figured that was the best he was going to get. 

J’naani walked him through a few possibilities. Obi-Wan, for his part, found a few more exits from the opera house, and tinkered with some of the equipment. He managed to boost the comms’ range considerably, and adapted a few vidcorders bought at the corner mart to something a bit smaller and more subtle. The cams would only pick up heat signatures now, but that was no different from standard field equipment for night-time work. 

Jessik’s contract had been laid out very precisely. The target’s name was Nenánt Paumlo, a prominent Azurian-Tioni businesswoman. Paumlo was one of the louder voices in Tion advocating for official Confederate membership. Obi-Wan suspected she also wanted the same for Azure. But the majority of Azure’s manufacturers had remained mostly indifferent to the idea. 

Nenánt attended every opera season premiere, and her exceptionally regimented habits made her a depressingly easy mark. Jessik was to take her at the opera house. Her absence—or death—would be discovered quickly, and noisily. But, the client heavily indicated that if there was an opportunity to make it look like a kidnapping, perhaps with potential for a ransom, Jessik was to take that opportunity. Hunter’s discretion, of course, but the client was willing to pay much more for the trouble. 

Obi-Wan was already chafing at the Order’s hardline non-interference policy, for all that he understood the stakes. He was gratified to notice he wasn’t the only one. 

“We’re not interfering with Centares authorities if we bag the hunter,” Baría—another of the field operatives—grumbled. 

Baría Hellnin was a staggeringly tall Feeorin, with unusually dark pigmentation—eyes copper-orange and skin a deep, _deep_ indigo. They cut quite a striking figure in the day, and blended into nothingness at night. 

J’naani sighed. “And what do we need a hunter for if it isn’t Jinn?” 

Baría growled unhappily, but said nothing. 

“If it’s Jinn, you can take him,” J’naani added, almost as a concession. Baría definitely brightened at that prospect. 

The night of the premiere, the field operatives spaced themselves out to watch the rooftops. Obi-Wan had set up a few of his clever little stealth-cams to monitor the street level. J’naani maintained that Centares’s underground tunnels and passageways were not going to be Jessik’s primary choice. 

“It’s too cramped for a big guy,” J’naani said, “and there are too many connections and dead-ends and boltholes. It’s not a good place to go, even if you’ve had your life to study those tunnels and a map penned on your skin.”

Obi-Wan installed one of his cams there anyway, just in case, at the cramped entry hatch to the opera’s rarely-used boiler room. 

* * *

Things happened very fast, and very quietly. At first, with everyone else so caught up in the moment, Obi-Wan had thought the sour feeling in his gut was just jittery nerves. But in the end he was moving even before the field operatives' lines had all gone dead and unresponsive, well before their tracker dots blinked off the screen. Half the people around him were just staring, numb, either at the screens that were showing them nothing, or at Obi-Wan as he systematically destroyed every drive, backup, and even remotely advanced piece of equipment. 

The residents joined him before anyone else. 

There were only two escape options: up to the roof and down into Centares' labyrinth of old transport tunnels. Most of the techs had fled upwards, towards the street, hoping to blend in among the Centares citizens.

Obi-Wan went down. 

He regretted his choice the moment he heard the flames roar behind and above him. The emergency hatch closed, but not before a burst of blistering hot air roared past him. The surprise was enough to make him let go of the ladder, stupidly. Obi-Wan slid down four rungs before he managed to catch himself. 

At that point, vibroblade heavy in one pocket and data drive in the other, some nascent, ill-formed, and definitely ill-advised idea took root in his mind. Instead of heading up for the roof, or even stopping at street-level, Obi-Wan kept descending. 

Down in the tunnels, a cold sobering feeling closed over him, head to toe. When he reached the end of the ladder, he was standing in pitch blackness, trying not to shake so hard his teeth would chatter. He made himself take a step forward, and then another step. His eyes slowly adjusted, and then the tunnel widened, and there seemed to be no point in going back up. 

Obi-Wan was cursing himself for ten times a fool. He was intel, surveillance, backup. He was a nobody, a trainee. Basic field training was _not_ the hell enough to save him from the cold-blooded killer on his trail. 

Obi-Wan let his head fall back against the wall, closed his eyes, and whispered a soft, but heartfelt, “Fuck.” 

“You could say that,” said someone _right next to him._

Obi-Wan swallowed, and felt the cool business end of a blaster pressing under his jaw. A preternatural calm stole over him. “Hello there,” he said. “May I interest you in surrendering your weapons and coming quietly?” 

The blaster pressed a little closer. “Drop the knife, _tech._ ” 

A strong hand closed around Obi-Wan’s wrist, and he gave in with a resigned sigh. The vibroblade hit the floor with a clear ringing chime and fell silent. 

“Should’ve taken your chance, you know. That would’ve been a dirty hit.” The man sounded amused, or maybe grudgingly impressed. “Who knows, you might even have walked away from this alive.”

“I rather doubt it,” Obi-Wan muttered. 

“Smart. Now—” 

Suddenly Obi-Wan was roughly spun around and shoved into the wall. The move knocked the breath out of him. The blaster pressed in at the base of his skull, just under his ear. 

_“Why do you people want to kill me,”_ Jinn growled. 

“Well,” Obi-Wan managed around a hiss of breath, arm twisted up behind him in an unkind hold, “the Order takes a pretty dim view of rogue agents blowing up embassies.” 

“You don’t say,” retorted Jinn. “Fine, I’ll bite. Which embassy am I supposed to have blown up?” 

“Try the Onderon Embassy on Anaxes.” Obi-Wan winced as the hold on his wrist tightened. “Looking to heat up the war a little?” 

The bulk of the man behind him went deathly still. “Nice try, but I haven’t been on Anaxes in years.” 

“Yeah, and I’m Galactic Emperor,” Obi-Wan bit out savagely. “They found bio-traces at the scene. It’s in the mission report, for fuck’s sake.” 

“And I’m telling you I haven’t bloody _been_ there! I’ve spent the last two years laying low and keeping the hell _away_ from the Core. Enjoying death. Less surveillance out on the Rim, less chance of running into you lot.” 

It made sense, Obi-Wan admitted grudgingly. The Rim had its own private law, set by the highest bidder in each sector. Usually, it went to the Hutts, and the Hutts couldn’t have cared less about cooperating with the Republic. 

But Obi-Wan wasn’t giving up just yet. He was held together by the last fumes of adrenaline and his mouth was by now entirely on autopilot. 

“What the hell have you been _doing_ these last couple years, anyway? Laying low, my ass. You Program alums and your itchy fingers, you’d lose it in a fucking week.” 

Jinn let out a bitter laugh; the sound of it made Obi-Wan’s skin crawl. 

“Ah, I thought they buried those files,” he purred into Obi-Wan’s ear, pressing closer. _“Didn’t they?”_

Obi-Wan shuddered. “They… did,” he admitted sourly. 

“But you found them on your own? Well, well. That’s very good. There may be hope for you yet.”

The dark spun around him again and Obi-Wan was abruptly aware that his knees were shaking, and the only thing holding him up was the wall. 

“I took some contracts,” Jinn’s voice carried down the tunnel, suggesting he was already some distance away. “Private individuals. I’ve never killed anyone who hadn’t earned the privilege. Well,” and there was that bitter chuckle once again, “not since I died.” 

And then he was alone. 

Obi-Wan slid down the wall until he rested on his heels, panting and shaking. He’d survived an encounter with a trained, ruthless killer—one of the Order’s best. So Jinn wanted him alive for… something. For what?

 _Never killed anyone who hadn’t earned the privilege,_ Jinn had said; and he’d called Obi-Wan a tech, like some low-level lab-rat who wasn’t even supposed to be out in the field. Did Jinn really consider him an innocent? Obi-Wan wasn’t sure that was a compliment, in their line of work. Or that it was even entirely accurate, anymore. 

It wasn’t until he got his breath back enough to move, until he got to his feet and stumbled back roughly the way he’d come, that Obi-Wan realised Jinn hadn’t expected him to know about the Program. 

Training was as important a piece of background as what resources the target might have access to—hell, in Jinn’s case, maybe more. Jinn had expected the Order to bury it, and they had. 

Obi-Wan finally found an exit after what seemed like hours had passed. He staggered out somewhere miles away from where he’d started, startling a passing gaggle of tourists. It was one of the entertainment quarters, he gathered—noisy, and brightly lit. The locals paid him no mind, simply stepping aside to let him into the flow of foot traffic. Obi-Wan let the current carry him through the crowded streets, away from that place and to the nearest public transport terminal. Centares didn’t have much surveillance to begin with; transcontinental lines were the best place to mingle and get lost. 

He needed time. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meet... cute? ~~meet ugly? you decide~~  
>  edit 12/30/2020: it is decided! this is in no way a meet-ugly
> 
> Thank you to the lovely Orientalld ([tumbl](https://orientalld.tumblr.com),[twt](https://twitter.com/Orientalld)), who has given us an image to go with the scene that inspired this entire menace of a fic 🥰


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Politics on Coruscant gets stickier and stickier. Elsewhere, Obi-Wan does some investigating of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! so. I am starting work soon and I've just had 2 days of New Person Orientation at the job. things are very 👀 right now.  
> Fully expect things to get very 👀 👀 👀 in, hmmm, about a month. But hey, that's school reopening for you. 
> 
> On that note: there's one more completed chapter to go, and then this story will go on hiatus, like the rest of me. There are gremlins to teach and freakouts to have. F in the chat, lads ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

_“Hey, Jinn! My friend! Jinn! You look like a couple hundred kliks of bad road.”_

_Qui-Gon’s first attempt at speech devolved quickly into a rough and painful cough instead. Almost immediately someone was supporting his head with a gentle hand and offering him a space-safe fluids packet with a straw. For a second before he placed that familiar voice, Qui-Gon considered fighting it, but he could barely move a muscle._

_Then he pieced together, bit by bit, the extravagant décor, the voice, even the vague noises he could hear outside the cabin. Qui-Gon gave in, somewhat relieved, and took a long pull at the liquid—just cool water, as it turned out._

_“Thanks,” he managed eventually._

_“I see you made someone very angry, Jinn. Who was it? Tell me, so I may never meet them in my life.”_

_The Weequay settled down at what was, apparently, Qui-Gon’s bedside._

_Qui-Gon‘s stomach turned over, protesting the liquid, and he did his best to overrule it. “Your girlfriend.”_

_“Aurra? That’s over and done with_ years _ago, my friend.”_

_“And you’re—still alive. Tha’s good.”_

_“Hey! Look at that! Good to hear you say that it is good!” Hondo laughed. “But you, you do not look alive so much.”_

_Qui-Gon would have shrugged, if he could, but his right shoulder was strangely stiff. “Dunno.”_

_“A-ah,” said Hondo, with a surprising amount of understanding. “Rest, my friend. We will take you somewhere with fresh air and water and green things, yes? Just relax._ Takodana tel’emerkli taa. _Maz will be happy to see you.”_

_Qui-Gon felt sleep pulling at him again. “Thought you owed her money…”_

_Hondo laughed. “Oh, sure! She’ll see you and forget all about me.”_

* * *

_“Special Report from our correspondent in the Tion Mid-Rim,”_ the news-stream chattered away at Mace’s elbow. _“This morning we are learning of a disturbance on the resort world of Centares, in Oruva City. Sources indicate the possible involvement of an assassin trained by the Jedi Order itself.”_

Mace choked on his caff and set it aside quickly before he could spill it over the datapads on his desk. He jabbed at the comm before it could say another word, then sent a furious summons down to Xan’s office. 

And then, in the five minutes it would take Xanatos to arrive, he waded into the Holonet to assess the damage. 

What he found was a public relations nightmare. The Holonet was throwing around words like “super-spy” and “super-soldier”. Even respected news outlets like the eminently sensible _Alderaanian Sun_ and typically restrained _Chandrillan Times_ were picking up on the rumour, struggling to keep up with the news cycle but unable to truly fact-check the result. _Alderaanian Sun_ had been markedly restrained and dubious, at least. 

Xan appeared in his doorway looking like he’d seen a slaughter. 

“What the hell happened?” Mace asked, too horrified to put any snap in his voice. 

“Well,” Xan said, “I believe you categorised incontestable mission failures as ‘unmitigated disaster’.” 

Mace pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit. How many did we lose?” 

“The techs are fine. Mostly. Not everyone’s reported in. Actually, anyone who’s reported in, I’d just as soon fire on the spot, if only we could spare them.” 

Mace glared at him. “What the hell does that mean?”

“They were specifically to have no contact with the Temple. Centares hasn’t picked up on their presence yet, but these idiots are still fucking planetside, Mace.” 

“Right.” Given a few minutes to collect himself, he would probably agree, but at the moment it seemed such a secondary concern. He was damned tired of losing Jedi. “Operatives?”

“The operatives… gone. The Residents are fine, though. They’re working out routes to get the techs off-world and back to the Core.” 

“How many of the techs are still unaccounted for?” 

“Two—Kenobi included. I refuse to worry just yet. He’s smart, he might’ve made a break for it. Maybe even left the system, by now.” 

“I suppose that’s good to hear,” Mace acknowledged. “Am I correct in thinking the Centares authorities haven’t picked up on our presence there yet, and this— _breaking news_ —” he said acidly “—is an untimely conspiracy theory?” 

“Seems that way, apart from their somehow knowing to target Centares,” Xanatos confirmed, finally sitting down in his favoured seat on the other side of Mace’s desk. “No idea about the author’s source, but I suppose they must’ve really trusted this one, to go all in like that.” 

“What has the world come to,” Mace muttered. “Trusted source—for all they know, they’re spreading Confederate propaganda.”

Xan shrugged. “In all fairness, it’s not a complete work of fiction,” he pointed out, with a tongue-in-cheek expression. 

Mace bent an unimpressed glare at him. 

Xan only raised his hands in a placating gesture. “So what do we do now?” 

“Well, we’re going to have to go out there and field questions about this shit,” Mace sighed heavily. “And nobody’s going to believe a word we say.”

“The joy of public relations in the espionage business.” 

“Quite.” Mace rose, almost started for the door, then hesitated. “Do we know it’s Jinn?” 

Xan sat still, looking up at Mace with his expression carefully blank. “Whoever this is, they killed off our operatives before they had a chance to raise an alarm. I truly don’t know, Mace. All I know is, the only people close enough to him to get visual confirmation are dead. At least that fits what I know about Jinn’s skills.” 

“Damn.” Mace sighed. “Well, I suppose we can pin our hopes on your young friend Kenobi pulling a miracle out of someone’s security data.” 

“For internal use only, I hope.” 

“Gods, no—I’m not handing that to the press even if we find out it _is_ Jinn.” Mace scrubbed a hand over his face. 

Xan was polite enough to mask his relieved expression, though Mace wasn’t fooled. Xan hadn't been pleased with the Order’s response to Jinn’s possible survival—Yoda’s response, in particular, had thoroughly disappointed him. 

Mace could sympathise. Living with the fact that he’d shot his partner and mentor was bad enough. Knowing that the man had survived, only for the Order to act with extreme prejudice toward him on the suspicion of desertion and betrayal… it was enough to sicken even Mace, though he understood the rationale as few others did. They’d had enough of one grief-maddened Sifo-Dyas, all those years ago. 

He shook off those memories before they could take root. “As far as the press is concerned, we have no knowledge of the events on Centares, and we certainly don’t know anything about any ‘Order-trained operative’ who might be involved. They won’t believe it, but the statement must be made.”

“Natch,” Xanatos replied gamely. “I’ll be listening for your expert deflections.” 

Mace snorted. “Flatterer. Don’t think I’m above making you do it. This mission is your mess, after all.” 

“Is it, though?” 

The question gave Mace pause, but Xanatos merely looked thoughtful. 

“You know we could never risk someone of Jinn’s abilities being turned or captured,” Mace said carefully, watching Xan gather himself up and rise from his seat. “You dealt with Sing, too, and more than once.”

Xan shook his head. “I find that less concerning than the fact that I sent people to identify a bounty hunter without being able to tell them exactly what sort of danger they’d be walking into. I did so under the direction of the highest rank in the Order. Perhaps Master Yoda understood all the possible outcomes, but I get to live with the results.” 

Mace sighed, but said nothing. He couldn’t, not if it meant calling Yoda’s decisions into question. 

“I also can’t help noticing that Jinn let the techs be,” Xan added, hand resting on the door control. “The field operatives, who would have known their task was to eliminate him, and would have known the risks— _they_ are dead.” 

That hadn’t occurred to Mace at all. He could almost have kicked himself for that. Later. Now, however—“Two of your techs are still missing. It’s possible the rest had enough warning to get out. We won’t know what really happened there until they debrief.”

Xan merely shrugged, and showed himself out. 

* * *

“This is Commander Muln of the Anaxes Admiralty, please state your business or get off the secure line before I track you down and rip your commset out of the wall.”

Obi-Wan snorted. “Please don't break my commset, Commander, it’s a public terminal and they’ll probably charge me for the property damages.”

“Oh, for—Hey, Obi! Long time, no calls—what happened to you? Siri’s gone off-grid, too. What’s going on over there?” 

Obi-Wan smiled at the comm, even though it wasn’t a video recording. “Garen,” he said, a touch reproachfully. 

“Okay, okay, yeah, fine—secrecy and all that. At least tell me you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Don’t know about Siri, she’s had an off-world assignment for a month. I don’t even know where she is.” 

Strictly speaking, that wasn’t true. Obi-Wan knew exactly where she was, and what mission she’d been assigned. But he certainly wasn’t supposed to. 

“Well, that’s a shame. Hey, you’re comming me from a local station. Have time for lunch?” 

Obi-Wan weighed his options: he was running a bit of his own software to encrypt this line of communication, but good old fashioned comm-taps were still very much in use. 

“That depends. D'you have a place to ditch your troubles for a while?” 

Translation: _ditch your comm._

Garen sobered. “Yeah, why not. Been a rough few weeks, and all that. Twenty minutes, at Academy Corner?” 

“Sounds good, see you in a bit.” 

* * *

Academy Corner was the name for the crossing of Academy Street and First Avenue. Between the facade of the Naval Academy’s University Hall and the actual crossing, there was a plaza with a modest but pretty, very well-tended garden. Garen trotted down the steps of the University Hall fifteen minutes later, and loitered in the garden for a little. Obi-Wan watched unobtrusively from across the street. 

Eventually, Garen turned and waved enthusiastically, as though he’d spotted an old friend down the street. He set off towards them with a brisk step. Obi-Wan followed a little more slowly, still lingering on the opposite side of the street. 

Garen had been a talented pickpocket back in the days before the Academy. Obi-Wan watched with some amusement as Garen excitedly greeted some hapless stranger, barreling over their protests, herded them into a bar, and bought them an apology-drink when he ‘realised’ he’d suffered a case of mistaken identity. 

Garen also ‘forgot’ his comm at the bar, most likely. Or maybe he’d worked out a scheme with the bartender, and tipped him extra to hold on to the thing for a couple of hours. 

Minutes later Garen turned up on Obi-Wan’s side of the street with a grin and an innocent look. Obi-Wan wasn’t the least bit fooled. 

“I see they’ve fixed the underground passageway,” he said. 

Garen pulled a face. “Damn. I should’ve realised you would have known about it even when it was still flooded and cordoned off for repairs. Is there any place you haven’t been in this city?” 

“I saw a new café a couple blocks away?” Obi-Wan offered. 

“Oh, the _Corona_? It’s pretty good, actually.” Garen smiled. “Not at all what I meant, but fine.”

“It has a back room and a signal jammer, and it’s owned by a friend of mine,” Obi-Wan elaborated. “And, in actual fact, I’ve never been there. Garen, I need to ask you a few questions, and I need honest answers. It’s important.” 

Garen sighed. “Well, anything for the Republic, obviously—” 

“No, Garen,” Obi-Wan cut him off gently. “Not for the Republic. For your friend.” 

Garen gave him a long, appraising look. “All right, Obi. For my friend.”

They filled the time it took to get to the _Corona_ with harmless small-talk. The protocol droid who greeted them at the counter recognised the data-chip Obi-Wan slipped to it, and ushered them to the back room without questions. 

“Nifty,” said Garen, catching a glimpse of the chip. “Where can I get one of my own?” 

“On Coruscant. Meet and make friends with a large Besalisk.” 

“Not gonna tell me _which_ Besalisk, are you?” 

Obi-Wan shot his old friend a sly grin. “Of course not. That you can figure out for yourself.” 

“I’m _supposed_ to be an upstanding citizen now,” Garen objected. “Whoever this is—isn’t the sort of company upstanding Naval Commanders keep.” 

“Oh? Whatever have you that idea?” 

“Signal jammer. I can’t hear it, so it’s expensive.” 

Obi-Wan snorted. “Good point, well made.” 

It wasn’t until they’d been left alone with their food—and made decent inroads in it—that either of them considered broaching the topic that had brought them to the _Corona_ in the first place. 

Garen leaned back in his seat. “So what did you want to ask?” 

Obi-Wan toyed with his grubsticks for a moment, wondering how best to navigate his problem. 

Perhaps he could start with the simplest question. “Would you happen to know who was stationed at the Onderon Embassy last week?” 

Garen tipped his head to one side. “Of yours, or of mine?” 

“Who would have written the incident report?” 

Garen thought about it. “He’s still in bacta.” 

“So who wrote the report?” 

“Likely one of the rescue team first on scene. One of the officers.” 

The look on Garen’s face was a universally recognisable expression: _now what do you want with my people?_

Paraphrased, naturally. 

Obi-Wan tilted his head in apology. “I have a problem, and my problem is this: somewhere, someone threw in a name for a suspect. I want to know who it was and how they came up with it.” 

Garen studied him carefully. “We didn’t name a suspect. We provided your people with a full report, video footage from surrounding security cams and the emergency drones. My understanding is the Order’s suspect was identified based on that footage.”

“Ah,” said Obi-Wan. 

“Obi…” Garen hesitated. “Is everything all right?” 

Obi-Wan cycled through the options. _Yes, everything’s fine, nothing to worry about, it’s all under control._

_No, tensions between the Republic and the CIS are nearly at a breaking point, and someone’s trying to put a fire to this powder keg. Possibly the Order. And they’re framing an innocent man for it—a man who was quietly spending the last two years playing dead, bothering nobody._

Last, and probably altogether the worst: _I don’t know._

_I don’t know who I’m working for anymore. I don't know whom to trust._

“About usual,” Obi-Wan decided. Garen had probably long since filled in the blanks.

Unsurprisingly, Garen just nodded. “Situation normal, all fucked up. I take it you haven’t seen those video files?” 

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking if I’ve sliced into my system or yours?”

“Great Force, no!” Garen laughed. “Obviously I know you’re a professional, you’ll want to crack both and compare the data. But I can give you timestamps and file sizes, probably even the tags for those files.”

That was enough to make Obi-Wan gape across the table at his friend. “Upstanding Naval Commander, my entire arse.” 

“Well, hey,” Garen shrugged with a lopsided grin, “ _I_ still know whom to trust. Out of the two of us, I think today we’ll have to trust my instincts.” 

“If you say so,” Obi-Wan muttered at his noodles. “Though as far as I know, you’re not supposed to be encouraging someone to go slicing into your system.” 

Garen shrugged. “I could just bring you to one of our secondary offices and give you access to whatever you want to see. Say your supervisor redirected you from—where the hell were you? Illum, or something?—anyway, had you redirected and wanted you to view the original footage.” 

Obi-Wan snorted. “If you think that’ll work.” 

“Sure, why over-complicate things. Bureaucracy’s an awful good way to save yourself some pain in the ass and cover it at the same time. Soft targets are always less hassle than computers.” 

“Oh.” Obi-Wan grimaced like he’d bitten into something sour. “Fuck. I’m an idiot.”

“Why?”

Garen looked genuinely bemused, which stung. Just a little. But Obi-Wan had walked into that himself. “Nothing,” he said, setting down his grubsticks. “You’d think after all this time I’d know better than sitting down to lunch with the head of the Naval Internal Security or something.” 

“Oh! I’m not,” Garen said lightly. “Not _yet,_ anyway. But now you mention it, I suppose I could be.” He flashed Obi-Wan a toothy grin. “If this ever comes up. I’d owe you one,” he added, wheedling. 

Obi-Wan glared back at him, but it was Garen—Obi-Wan’s temper never held for long. “Fine.”

* * *

Alik wasn’t particularly enthused by Mace’s emergency contact. They met in the industrial zone, in one of the recently reclaimed districts that still had a policy of power-rationing after dark. Mace still wondered if the “reclaimed” status was a matter of the living space being reclaimed by working-class citizens, or if it was the architecture being reclaimed by greenery. The whole place had a wild, over-grown feel to it, even if the greenery was strictly managed and maintained by the Coruscant Beautification Society. 

Alik had chosen one of the community garden plots, which also functioned as a playground for the neighbourhood younglings. 

When he finally spotted her in the gloom, Mace had the impression that she looked unusually exhausted, sitting huddled around a cup of caff like a particularly displeased cat. 

“Where’s mine?” he quipped. 

Alik wordlessly reached into the shadows and held out a cup for him. “I take it something’s really wrong.” 

Mace sighed and sat down beside her on the cool duracrete bench. “Depends. What’s the CSF’s policy on dead operatives going rogue?” 

“Dead operatives tend to stay that way, if they know what’s good for them.” 

“Touché.” 

Alik cut a quick glance his way. “Ah. I see I’ve hit something.” 

“Just a bit,” Mace acknowledged. “Do you live here?” 

“I’ve got boltholes everywhere. Living is a… term I would use loosely. If I live anywhere, it’s at the office.” 

“Sounds about right.” The caff was good—very good. “We lost—or thought we lost—a Specialist two years ago. He turned up on the security feeds from the Embassy.” 

“Oh, how nice,” Alik agreed blandly. “It couldn’t have been doctored footage?” 

“Not what Anaxes says.” 

“Hmm. Anaxes is generally good at being able to tell fakes from raw footage. But then, there are ways to slip it past them.” 

“You’d just have to be really, _really_ good. Or maybe you caught and turned yourself an assassin.” 

Alik eyed him in the near-dark. “An _Order-trained_ assassin? That’s a rare challenge, my friend. Do you even have any evidence that your operative is still alive?”

He shrugged. “I also lack evidence of his purported death.” 

Alik huffed. “Your lot do know how to make things complicated. So… the report from the Tion Sector wasn’t some wild conspiracy theory?” 

Mace sighed, and shook his head. They didn’t often trade direct questions about their respective work. “I suppose there’s no way to sweep it under the carpet now.”

“If the Senate chooses to run with it, you’ll have a serious problem,” Alik agreed. “There’s a movement to review the Corulag Summit votes. With the attack on Azure, a number of sentinel worlds are beginning to reevaluate their initial decision.” 

Mace swore quietly, but it didn’t come as much of a surprise. 

“The Senate won’t need to put too much effort into pushing them over the edge now,” Alik continued. “It’s just a matter of discrediting the Order and convincing everyone that you were inadequate to the task of protecting them to begin with. The final rivet in the radioactive-waste sarcophagus, as it were.” 

He snorted at that. Alik certainly had a way with words. “You have experience with Senate questioning. Any advice?” 

But rather than offer another flippant comment or quip, Alik heaved a deep and tired sigh, and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. She rolled her cup of cooling caff between her palms and craned her neck back to stare at the purple-gold night sky. 

It was a long moment before she spoke. 

“When Chancellor Kalpana decided to side with the voices calling to curtail and defund CSF’s financial fraud and organised crime divisions, we fought it legally, and we lost. They tried to bury us. I won’t apologise for what we did. I can’t, not without dismissing a lot of work and a lot of good people, but… we did unsavoury things. We joined with the people we’d investigated and hunted, and manipulated them for our own ends. 

“We took away their teeth, but we allowed them to hurt innocents in the process. We propped up those who were useful to us, but you can’t _get_ without _giving,_ and sometimes that form of giving is a sacrifice no sane or merciful person would make. We’ve tried to make amends for that by making right, but some things simply _cannot_ be made right again.” 

Strange; all of this was nothing Mace had not known, or at the very least suspected. It was still jarring to hear it so openly admitted. They kept it unspoken, and Mace did not often think about it, because Alik had always been a useful ally. It seemed wrong to judge someone whose character had already held up so well and for so many years. 

He hadn’t exactly expected guidance, but some part of him had still hoped for a chance, even a miracle. 

Alik glanced over at him, a deep sorrow and understanding in her eye. “I do not see that for the Order, or for you,” she said. “If you’re looking for a lesson on how to survive annihilation, I must tell you that for a time I barely recognised who we were; and what came out of the dark bears little resemblance to what went in. We’re Counterintelligence now, for fucks sake. But I also cannot tell you to surrender; either way, you lose a part of your soul. Clawing your way back will always be the hardest part.” 

Mace nodded. “I gathered much of that. I’m not sure why I asked.” 

Alik shrugged. “Sometimes there is wisdom in hindsight, but I’m afraid that I have gathered none.”

Still, Alik’s answer was better than no information at all. There were things Mace could and could not change. The Senate was immovable. If they decided to take apart the Order, there was little he would be able to do. 

And it seemed they’d decided on their course of action after all. Mace had spent the better part of the last three hours sorting through the Order’s various allies in the Senate. They’d all said pretty much the same thing: the pervasive view in the Senate was that the Order was an outdated bit of bloat and a waste of resources, and the sooner it was swept under the Joint Coalition rug, the better. If the Intelligence Oversight Committee could find a way to entirely dismantle it, it would really be best for everyone. 

And, Mace learned, the Intelligence Oversight Committee would be especially pleased to see the back of Master Yoda. That hadn’t exactly come as a surprise. Words like ‘old’ and ‘dated’ had been bandied about—apologetically, for the most part. Some spoke of respect and dignity—as if Yoda had ever cared about dignity. 

An official, politely worded Senate summons for Master Yoda had appeared on Mace’s desk within half an hour of his last call. 

If nothing else, that article had suspiciously good timing. 

“Alik, I need to know who got that article published. It would be better to know the journalists’ mysterious source.” 

She smiled. “Figuring out who your friends and enemies are is always a good start. The source may be difficult to identify, but I’m game. Haven’t questioned journalists in some while—they’re always fun.” 

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Mace muttered, amused despite himself. “I also need to know, definitively, if Jinn is alive. If he’s working for anyone, or aligned with the Confederacy… I need to know that, too.”

Alik _tsk-_ ed quietly. “If your teams haven’t found him, or haven’t lived to tell the tale—” 

“I’m not asking you to sacrifice people trying to apprehend him,” Mace assured her quickly. “But you have contacts in Tion, I know you do.” 

“I have contacts as far out as Nal Hutta, that’s not exactly the point.” But Alik shook her head and waved off whatever Mace might’ve said. “If he was there, I can only promise you that I will have as concrete a confirmation as is available to me. That may mean I cannot give you a holo-image.” 

“I understand. It’s exactly why we were on Centares: Jinn’s biotraces were found on Anaxes, but that’s easy enough to plant. We wanted to be sure.” 

“All right, I’ll… I doubt they’ll know, but if anything crops up I’ll be sure to pass it along. Is there anything else you want me to poke around in?” 

The thought came to Mace then, thoroughly unbidden, that Master Yoda’s reticence was strange; that Xan had not been wrong in his mildly-voiced suspicions. That Mace had wanted to question Yoda’s orders for a long time, especially where Jinn was concerned. That Jinn’s supposed death on Malastare might have been a thoroughly avoidable thing, if only Yoda hadn’t _pushed._

And then it occurred to Mace that there was a distinct difference between Yoda’s actions two years ago and his current, retiring affect. Yoda hadn’t been inclined to push back against the formation of the Joint Coalition. He hadn’t fought Doriana on the transfer of Order personnel from the Temple to the grand new building in the Industrial Sector. 

Mace had merely thought it strange, then. Now, set against the memory of Yoda’s involvement in the Malastare mission, Mace’s suspicions stirred and slowly assembled into a shape potentially far more dire. 

He just wasn’t completely sure what that shape was, yet. 

“I’ll think on it,” he said. “The money trail behind the new building—how’s that coming along?” 

“Aside from what I’ve shared with you already?” Alik sighed. “I’ve found some interesting new entities attached, and some who felt the need to cover their tracks.” 

Mace raised an eyebrow. “They provided funding to a Senate-approved project. By law, that makes their donations publicly available information.”

“Even so, we’re now in a legal tug of war with the Muuns of the Banking Clan—who are, by the way, questioning the _Senate’s_ legal grounds for instating a joint coalition.” 

“Oh, that’s…” Mace snorted. “Very funny. The Banking Clan knows Republic Law better than the Senate, is that what they’re saying?” 

“Mm.” Alik smiled faintly. “They may have a point, actually. CSF’s legal counsel agrees, there’s a valid interpretation there. I’m half-inclined to bring the record of our communications before the Senate and let them ponder it, since voting against the Banking Clan is a dangerous motion, and some of our Senators will most certainly lose favour and funding in the process.” 

“What a difficult position that puts them in,” mused Mace. “However: would it do us any good to start that debate?” 

“Sadly, no.” Alik’s tone was regretful. “They won’t break up the Coalition. I’ll be perfectly honest, everything’s happened exceptionally fast. No single governmental system has ever been capable of preparation on this scale. They have the updated software, they’ve tested and re-tested—if I didn’t know any better, I’d say they’ve been planning this for the last five or six years.” 

“Empire Holdings very well could have.” 

“Valdis has the resources, certainly. He didn’t want to be too obvious, though. Now, Damask Holdings—I don’t know enough about them, but they made substantial donations.” 

“I don’t know that name.” Mace frowned. “A new entity?” 

“No, it’s old. It’s been inactive for over a decade— _and_ someone put a good deal of effort into keeping that name off the paperwork.” Alik took a sip of her caff, then swirled it around the cup. “Surprisingly, the Banking Clan has shown a willingness to provide a full list of Damask Holdings’ transactions.” 

“Why the exception?” 

“Apparently, the account belongs to a previous administrator of the Banking Clan who has been missing for over a decade. The others are… concerned, I suppose, that the account has been in use, but Hego Damask never left any indication that others had been granted access to his accounts.” 

“Are they concerned about fraud, or do they want you to find a missing person?” 

“Muuns like things to be in order, as I’m sure you’ve seen,” Alik said. “It’s a big galaxy. The probability of finding someone who’s been missing for the last ten years is slim. Either he is dead, or he is deliberately hiding, and he’s done so successfully for a full decade already. Mind you, the Muuns don’t like to be involved in Republic politics beyond holding Senators in their debt. If Damask is indeed alive, his involvement in the Joint Coalition project is in conflict with the Banking Clan’s interests, and he stands to lose any status he might have been entitled to among his own.” 

Mace tilted his head at her. “You think he’s dead.” 

“I wouldn’t put money on it. Damask’s involvement in Republic politics was pushing the limit two decades ago—he wouldn’t care about losing his status. But, for some reason I don’t think the Banking Clan is wrong to be concerned about fraud. I can’t explain.” 

“It’s all right. I’ll ask our Archivists for anything we might have on Hego Damask.” 

“Equivalent exchange?” Alik smiled. “Careful, one might think we were pleased by this Coalition nonsense.” 

Mace sighed. “It’s entirely none of the Senate’s business, but anyone with a need to know and a minimum of one ocular appendage was already aware that the Order and CSF’s Counterintelligence Branch work together well enough. The problem is that they want to keep an eye on all of us at once.” 

“More fool they, for not keeping an eye where they really should. Tikkes has been doing his absolute best to piss off our Neutral neighbours, among others. Onderon isn’t likely to wish to continue the ‘open dialogue’ they’ve had with the Republic thus far. Honestly, your accident in the Tion Sector is among the least of our worries, but they’re sure to make a big production of it to shift both the blame and the unwanted attention.” 

Mace couldn’t quite hold back a snort. “Was that supposed to be a consolation?” 

“It can be whatever you like, and if you can make yourself feel consoled by it, then do,” Alik retorted, sounding very much like she was laughing at him. “But I’d like you to keep the broader picture in mind, here: Onderon and Anaxes have both had a remarkably measured response to recent events, and Centares will likely show equivalent restraint. Our own politicians seem to be set on pushing everyone to the very limits. This Cold War of ours might heat up simply because the Republic is run by incompetents concerned with their personal wealth and decades-old grudge matches.” 

“Tikkes?” 

“Among others.” 

“So you are politely redirecting me away from our hunt for a potentially dangerous fugitive and deserter to focus on our own politicians’ failings.” 

Alik hesitated. “CSF was originally responsible for our Senators’ security, which included their background checks. The Senate Bureau of Intelligence claimed to have the same responsibilities, and when they decided to force CSF out, they were successful—because CSF actually did their job.” 

“Whereas members of the SBI could be bribed.” 

“Exactly so. The Senate Guard is still ultimately part of CSF, but we are limited to protecting Senators from the threats we are actually aware of, and SBI does not willingly share anything.” 

“You believe the Order has a better chance of getting anything done?” 

“Of getting any investigating done? Yes. While you’re not yet thoroughly distracted by the forced transfer to a new location.” 

Alik’s eyes fairly burned in the low light. Mace decided it would be better not to argue. 

“A handful of my techs are keeping an eye on shifting loyalties,” he volunteered instead. 

“That’s good, but that’s not quite what I mean.” 

“No, you want us to poke around directly in our Senators’ dirty laundry,” Mace replied dryly. “That’s fine. If we’re meant to be a Joint Coalition, I don’t see why we shouldn’t trade off distasteful responsibilities every now and then.”

“Very funny.” Alik rose and tossed her cup into a nearby compactor. “But yes: I can have someone on the ground in Centares, and you have the ability to apply greater scrutiny to the Senate. That should make us about even, this round. Good night, Mace.” 

“Get some sleep,” he called after her. 

Mace leaned back with a deep sigh, and studied the city skyline with interest. He’d never seen it from his angle. The twinkling lights and the never-ending flow of traffic filled him with an unexpected swell of nostalgia. Mace didn’t often miss his operative days, but he suddenly missed the stars very badly. 

His hand brushed against something papery and warm. It took a moment to realise Alik had left him breakfast, as well, in the form of freshly baked pastries. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the entire backstory of the CSF, Alik included, are lifted wholesale from my plotting for frankenfic, aka the series _Silent enim leges inter arma._ Said series is currently on hold, and CSF doesn't appear in all its true (dubious) glory for another few years along the timeline. 
> 
> Actually, quite a bit of the frankenfic plotting served as a foundation for Occupational Hazards, come to think of it. The cold-war status is purely OH canon, but the rest—worlds forced to join the CIS by insurgencies, even the subplot of Onderon seceding from the Republic after the Republic's failure to help them clean up an environmental catastrophe caused by a major mining corporation's activities—yep. I got tired of waiting to get to all that world-building in frankenfic and now we got this behemoth of a fic.

**Author's Note:**

> YEAH! so. If y'all have never got the chance to read kryptaria's fic, I highly recommend you at least check out their [James Bond (Craig Movies)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria/works?fandom_id=613602) fics. Personally I always recommend [_Ordinary Numbers_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/705037/chapters/1301146), [_Treason, Traitors, and Treachery_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3513665/chapters/7725452), and [_Mercenary_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/736700/chapters/1370242). 
> 
> Y'all are basically on your own after that (although _Where Loyalties Lie,_ a Q/Trevelyan fic, is also very very good, and I am deeply fond of _Old Gods, New Tricks_ ).


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